Yo people of fanfiction and beyond. Storm Hawk 21 here with the latest chapter of Samurai Forever. I've got quite a bit planned for these next couple of chapters, so remember to stay tuned. Not that much action this time, though I guarantee that the next chapter is going to be action packed! Well, as packed as I can write, anyways.

By the way, does anybody have a list of the Shinkenger's Shinkenmaru attacks?

I love cameos. I try to slip in as much as I can from time to time. Just letting you know in advance to look forward to more cameos not just by Shinkenger, but a few other Super Sentai and some by Power Rangers. Speaking of which, I might be publishing a new story soon, this time belonging to the Super Sentai category. I gotta admit that I was a little disappointed about how fewer the number of fics was for that category. That's why I wanted to post something. Well, it's just an idea anyways. I'm not entirely sure if I could develop it into a story.

Disclaimer:I don't own Power Rangers or Super Sentai. I thought that was pretty obvious. Why do I need to keep repeating myself?

Chapter 3 – A Moment's Reprieve

Jayden paced around the training area at the Shiba house while Emily and Antonio were trying to warm themselves by the fire he had conjured. Their suits had protected them for the most part, and it took only a matter of seconds for Jayden to defrost them with his Symbol Power after he had thawed out himself. However, the suits hadn't prevented them from feeling the cold, and the two were shivering uncontrollably as they tried to restore their proper body temperature.

While Jayden was glad that his friends were alright, he couldn't seem to calm down. This new threat, Akuma, was worrisome. If Xandred was a mere pawn… Jayden couldn't repress the shudder at the thought of an army of Xandred-level monsters.

Emily caught the action and beckoned him to sit down next to her. "Are you sure you aren't cold, Jayden?" she asked. Jayden shook his head, but he did take a seat.

"I told you Em, my suit and Symbol Power protected me," he replied. He was about to say more, but something else caught his attention. The way the firelight had caught her hair and made it glow. How her bottom lip was jutting out and trembling ever so slightly. Her eyes were still full of that innocence she had when they had first met, but now there was also a sharpness no doubt tempered by all of their experiences. 'Had Emily always looked so…?'

"Jayden?" Emily was feeling rather warm, and not because of the roaring bonfire. She fidgeted nervously under his intense gaze, suddenly thankful for the flames to camouflage her visage, which was slowly starting to match his uniform. And then, just like that, Jayden seemed to snap out of whatever trance he was apparently in.

"Sorry, I was just lost in thought." Well, he wasn't lying. He just didn't admit that he was thinking about her. 'What…? No, I can't afford to spend too much time dwelling on… whatever that was now. I'll deal with it later.'

Antonio, who was silent throughout the short exchange, almost groaned. He had known Jayden for a long time, and he knew what he was thinking. "Duty before everything," or something along those lines. Emily's genuinely confused and Jayden has no idea. Well, he's up.

"Hey Jay, any idea when the others are coming back?"

"Huh?" Wow, Jayden must've really been out of it. "Oh, right. Jii left two days ago, so he's probably just arriving in Reefside today. Lauren just called before you guys got here. She's already in Hawaii and on her way to find Mia. She'll stay the night and both board the plane early tomorrow morning. Then they'll pick up Kevin on their way here."

A silence descended on the three, the only sounds being the background of the city and the crackling flames.

"Hey, Jayden?"

"Yeah, Emily?"

"Was it just me or was that woman, Yuki, kind of weird?"

Jayden didn't respond right away. Instead, he sighed before saying, "If by 'weird', you mean that she was capable of predicting how we would move, then yeah." He fully turned to his two perplexed friends before continuing. "I didn't want to mention this, but it seemed like she knew what we would do. Almost as if she had seen it before. What if she had seen our fights with the Nighloks? She even mentioned that Akuma was going to take out Xandred themselves, so what if they had sat back and watched while we did their dirty work? They know all about our fighting styles, the disks, our Symbol Power, and possibly even our weaknesses."

Emily let out a shocked gasp while Antonio nodded dismally.

"That's what I thought. There's no way someone we just met could so perfectly dodge my high speed Barracuda Barrage without getting at least a scratch. It's impossible! Lo imposible!"

"That means," Emily began.

"That anything we've done before, we have to assume that they know about it already. If we want to fight them, we're going to come up with some new tactics." Jayden finished. Antonio 'hmm'ed for a few seconds, before he snapped his fingers as his face lit up.

"Jayden! I've got a golden idea!" he brought their heads together as he whispered his plan. When they broke apart, Jayden and Emily were busy contemplating while Antonio beamed. "It's fantastico! Right?"

"It could work," Jayden admitted, "but we still need something more. At best, that'll last for only a couple of fights. And that's only if we're lucky." Antonio went from overjoyed to depressed so fast he could've been mistaken as bipolar.

"Let's do it anyways," Emily quickly interjected. "It's not like we have anything else, do we? We have to take a chance!"

Jayden looked at her. "Em, I never said that we wouldn't use it," Antonio instantly perked up and Emily felt her face growing warm. "I just said that it wasn't enough." He stood up. "Are you guys warm enough now?" Emily nodded, but Antonio just shook his entire body. "Alright. Em, come with me. I think I know where we can find a lead. Antonio, stay here. Come inside when you're warm enough, but remember to put out the fire." He gave a small sneeze before nodding.

Emily followed Jayden to the living room and took a seat. Jayden left for a few moments before returning with an armful of old books and papers. He repeated this process a couple of times until there was a small paper mountain atop the table. He grunted as he deposited the last of them before picking one up. On the cover was some kanji that Emily didn't recognize.

"Hey Jayden? What does that say?"

Jayden glanced at the cover before replying, "It says Shinken, which is roughly translated as the 'true/real sword'." He saw her next question and answered before she could ask. "I had Jii's older brother in Japan send it when we were busy fighting Xandred, though it wasn't really needed by the time it had arrived. And yes, Jii has a brother. He's the caretaker of my cousin."

"You have a cousin?"

"Yeah, two." Jayden wouldn't say anything more on the subject. Emily tried to change the topic.

"So, about this Shinken…"

"Shin-what?" Antonio asked as he walked in.

"Shinken, 'the real sword'. It might hold the key to powering up," Jayden explained.

"Why/How?" Emily and Antonio questioned simultaneously.

Jayden sighed. "You two should probably get comfortable; this might take a while." They did just that. "Em, as you know our ancestors used Symbol Power to transform and combat Nighloks to protect the Earth. What's less widely known is that they originally used swords called Shinkenmaru in their fight against the Nighloks, which were called Ayakashi back then." Something in Jayden's memory stirred, but it was too blurry for him to decipher. "Somewhere along the line between their time and ours, the Shinkenmaru were replaced by our current Spin Swords. And, while the Spin Swords are a really good imitation, they can't duplicate the original power of the Shinkenmaru.

"Some time last year, Jii was researching ways to help us defeat Xandred when he chanced upon an old book which held some vital information about Shinkenmaru. When he wrote to his elder brother, he discovered that the swords were still in existence, but they were then unavailable. That didn't stop Jii, though.

"He began to fervently investigate the matter and discovered a way to transform our Spin Swords into Shinkenmaru. However, at that time, Xandred had risen and we were occupied with fighting him. All further inquiry on the matter were put on hiatus to focus entirely on our battle against Xandred and by the time Jii had the luxury to continue, we had won and it was more or less unnecessary. Unfortunately, as you know that is not entirely true.

"Although, there is some good news. According to Jii's notes, it should be similar to the case with the Black Box." At that, both Jayden's and Emily's focus turned to Antonio, who pointed at himself and mouthed 'Me?'. "That's right. You're key to this my friend. And if Jii is correct then when you're successful, then we can probably double our current strength." Both Emily and Antonio processed this information quietly.

"No te preocupes mi amigo!" Antonio exclaimed loudly, leaping to his feet and startling Jayden and Emily. "I can do this no problem! Let me at it!"

Jayden smirked. "I'd thought you would say that." He suddenly adopted a serious expression again. "There's just one problem. While the method is similar, we can't do the same thing as we did with the Black Box." Antonio's grin faltered slightly.

"So then, what should we do?" Emily voiced her thoughts aloud.

This time Jayden gave a weary sigh and motioned towards the large pile of difficult-looking books lying on the table. "Jii narrowed down the information to be somewhere among these texts." Emily and Antonio's eyes widened. That was a lot of reading. She picked up one with a little difficulty and cracked it open. Her eyes widened even further when page upon page of difficult looking Japanese characters greeted her.

"Jayden! Are all of these books in Japanese?" she asked incredulously.

"They did come from Japan," was his replied. "Don't worry Em. Leave those to me. I just need you to read through Jii's notes to see if there's anything I overlooked." Emily sighed in relief. She had vastly improved her knowledge of the language, but she didn't feel confident enough to translate all of those books. She did notice that there were a considerable amount of papers and began to wonder how long it would take for her to read through them.

Antonio, on the other hand, was sweating profusely. "Hey Jayden, buddy, amigo! Please don't tell me you want me to read those… books. Do you?" Under his breath he began rapidly muttering something in Spanish to indistinct for them to hear.

Jayden was silent and just looked between Antonio and the books. Antonio hung his head and resigned himself to his fate. He snapped his head back up when he heard Jayden chuckling.

"No you don't have to help with this right now, but we will need you soon enough." Jayden finally said after a while. Antonio was somewhere between immensely relieved, moderately peeved, and slightly shocked. Emily found his expression rather comical and giggled. Jayden let this continue for a few seconds before deciding to continue. "Although, there is one thing that I need you to do and it's related to your idea earlier."

They spoke in hushed tones, making Emily feel a bit left out. When they finished, Antonio shouted, "Fantastico!" before running back outside. Jayden picked up his book again and began to read. Emily waited a couple of minutes before she her curiosity got the best of her.

"What was that about?"

Jayden looked at her calmly before smirking. "Something Antonio had made, but never used," he said cryptically. Emily gave up and began to read through the nearest stack of papers.

[Scene Change]

In a dark, unknown area surrounded by trees, Yuki had stumbled for the twentieth time in the past hour and screeched angrily. 'How dare those Rangers do this to me,' she thought angrily. Uproarious laughter echoed all around her.

"The so-called 'Ice Queen', reduced to this? Oh, how absolutely humiliating!"

Yuki took a deep breath and began to speak calmly. "All right, Crow, you've had your fun. Now come out so we can talk and so I CAN TURN YOU INTO AN ICICLE!"

'Crow' seemed to find this hilarious, as he merely laughed louder. "Who would actually listen to that?" Nonetheless, a figure materialized in one of the trees, preferring to stay hidden within the shadows.

"Have you just come here to laugh, or is the 'messenger' actually doing his job for once?" Yuki all but spat out at his concealed form.

"How cruel," Crow pretended to be offended. "I do my job more than just once. Why, just last week–"

"Just get to the point already!"

"Of course," Yuki couldn't see him, but she was sure he was sporting that absolutely infuriating, not to mention arrogant, smirk of his. "Central sent me here to pass on the message... uh... give me a second... right! They told me to pass on this message: 'This war is to be fought on two fronts' yada yada. Everyone's being called back so they can find out where they're being dispatched."

"Tell them that I must be assigned here. Is that all?"

"Got it. I'm also supposed receive your report on the Rangers. So, what's up?"

"They are currently scattered, and we have a few days before they're altogether. And they're stronger than previously thought."

Crow jotted down everything on a small notebook, notably using a feather as a pen. "Then we have a couple of days before we have to act. Higher ups want to wait til they're all together so we can eliminate them all in one swoop."

Yuki growled before saying, "That's a mistake. Tell them we need to act now before they reunite. They're far stronger as a team than individually."

"Noted." Crow motioned to leave, but Yuki stopped him.

"What are you doing? Central is in the other direction."

"Again, noted." Crow repeated, sounding bored. "I already passed on the message and got your report. Those were my orders. Nobody said I couldn't have a little fun before returning…" He vanished in a gust of wind, leaving behind naught but a few ebony feathers.

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