Part Two
Oddly enough, however, Naaza seemed to have been called elsewhere almost immediately following his chilling proclamation. I had been taken back to the cell in which I'd first woken, though they'd left me in my full yoroi—something for which I was at first grateful.
And then I found out why we'd been left in them.
I was attempting a catnap when the energy hit me. As if because of the fact my yoroi's affinity was water, the electricity arcing up and down my body made me want to die right then and there. Shu and Seiji's matching screams filtered through the connection to me, lasting what seemed forever before a break finally appeared through the agony.
It left me huddled on the hard stone for a long while, my mind so out of it that I didn't even notice when Suiko sloughed off my body. It was only when a cold, wet shiver shot up my arms that I realized I was back in my street clothes.
What was that? I wondered. A brief prod at Suiko's power showed me that it was recouping from those strange shocks. A thought dawned on me. Something took a portion of our power.
That something, I realized later, was actually Arago crafting a weapon to destroy Ryo and Touma as they charged across the youjakai in an attempt to rescue us.
Time held no further meaning for me. It could have been days or more than a week that I lay in that dark cell. One cold torch of green fire illuminated the tiny space, set on the wall outside the bars so that I could have no way of reaching it. The sheer unnaturalness of it set me on edge, not to mention the unpredictability of Naaza's potential return at any moment to make good on his threat. I suppose I hadn't been entirely forgotten, though, as some ghost or spirit or something teleported into my cell at regular intervals to lay a bowl of miso in front of me. I had no choice but to eat—it was all that kept me alive, aside from drawing on Suiko's small reserves here and there.
The only evidence I had of time passing was how much fat began to slough off my body, and in very noticeable places. My humor seemed to grow darker, too, as I became somewhat glad I didn't have Shu's bottomless pit for a stomach. It made the starvation, the probable infection of my bleeding wrists, and the ensuing soreness all over my body a little easier to bear.
I wondered constantly how Shu and Seiji were surviving their ordeal; the fact I hadn't felt anything more from them made me both hopeful and sick with worry.
I had just finished the most recent bowl when a sudden change in the atmosphere—and Suiko—put me on alert. Excitement broke the monotony of my day-to-day existence, emanating from the yoroi's joy at some shred of hope it recognized but that took my slow mind longer to comprehend.
Ryo and Touma had reached the castle.
The feeling lasted for all of a few minutes. Almost out of nowhere, then, I lost a feel of Shu and Seiji, and Suiko release a mournful cry of lamentation into my soul that physically hurt my chest. I gasped, a fist clenched in the fabric of my grimy shirt.
And then my worst nightmare finally showed up.
There was no preamble, no introduction, no gloating. He merely snatched my bicep in one hand—drawing a weak mewl from me at the rough metal against almost paper-dry skin—and teleported us from there to the statue room from last time. Immediately I noticed that the huge mouths which had scared me stiff earlier had somehow closed shut. A sinking suspicion told me my fellows had been inside when it did.
Tears sprang unbidden to my eyes, though (luckily) Naaza seemed not to notice as he dragged me through a huge crater in the wall and deeper into the bowels of the fortress. Distant explosions and sounds of fighting echoed through the silent halls, confirming my thought that Ryo and Touma had finally arrived. It was incredibly difficult to think, though—every step pulled on sore muscles and aching joints, my feet constantly tripped over each other, and the Masho's armored hand was starting to make my skin bleed sluggishly. Suiko had tried so hard to gather up any extra moisture it could from my cell, but that had quickly been used up compensating for the salt in my miso.
When finally we halted, the battle outside had subsided to a dull whisper that sometimes shook the foundation of the castle itself. Eerie darkness filled the cavernous space, though Suiko perked up at the ringing drip, drip of water falling from stalactites far overhead.
He finally turned to me, and the awe I felt at this place was quickly overwhelmed by the terror of facing Naaza as I was. Suiko tried to comfort me, but it was too weak to entirely protect me. The armored hand—so much larger than my own—snatched at my face, causing yet another wince and mewl at new pains it caused.
"You have been a thorn in my side for too long, Suiko no Shin," the Masho hissed, his eyes even more snake-like in the low light. "It's time I put you in your place."
He shoved me back. Too weak to maintain my balance, I fell heavily to my side, the rocky ground opening new scrapes in my skin. I instinctively curled into the fetal position, hardly able to process what was happening; as if I were simply in a dream, and I'd wake up any moment to find myself back at Nasté's house with the guys all around. I was almost too scared to try anything, even though I had so much training just for this sort of thing.
My mind blanked as Naaza wrenched me back up to face him, fear (and the fact my chains mysteriously vanished) barely registering as a distant little voice when a tanto leveled with my throat. The hand wrapped in my shirt collar dropped me hard onto my back, the blade finding purchase now where his hand had previously been. It sliced through the polyester like a hot knife through butter, and the cold air raised goosebumps on my exposed sternum.
I screwed my eyes shut, a hot tear sliding through my lashes as I resigned myself to my fate.
The cavern suddenly shook with a vengeance, its epicenter somewhere very near to us. It made Naaza pause, and when I opened my eyes I suddenly saw that he'd powered down to subarmor. My muddled brain could hardly fathom the thing—none of us had ever seen any Masho in less than the full yoroi.
It wasn't long before a huge explosion ripped through the back wall of the cavern. The energy was so powerful as to lift us bodily into empty space, light and air blinding us completely.
Apparently I passed out, because when next I could think straight, I saw Shu's concerned face hovering over mine. His lips were moving, but I could make out no sound—I guess that explosion had done more damage than I initially surmised.
In the time before my hearing finally swam back into range, I slowly realized I wasn't lying on a floor or anything else flat. Suiko had formed around my body, though the familiar weight of my helm was missing. Flashes of light and darts of color mingled in my peripherals and over Shu's shoulder. It took me a few more moments to realize there was a fight going on.
"Sh… Hear m… 'Mon, sa…"
"S-Shu…?"
The relief on his face was immediate. He turned briefly to yell something at the darting colors before facing me again. "Just hold on, buddy, you're gonna be alright."
A smile fluttered at the edges of my lips. My eyes—too heavy to keep them propped open—slid slowly down. "Thank you, Shu…"
I was suddenly shaken with all the force of the Gan Ba Sai. "No, Shin—damnit, don't you dare close your eyes! You can't sleep yet!"
Tired of holding my head straight, I let it roll to the right, finding the cool metal of his armor under my cheek. "But Shu, I'm so tired…"
Someone—I think it was Touma—yelled something sharply about water. Shu swiftly hitched me up higher in his arms; the motion and his ensuing sprint roiled my stomach. As much as I wanted to throw up the tiny portion of miso sloshing around in it, somehow I managed to just clench my eyes against it and bury my face in Shu's breastplate.
Luckily he didn't go far. There was a huge splash as he hit some body of water, and the moment Suiko felt its element, strength flooded my abused limbs. I gasped, eyes flying open.
"Shu, no! You can't swim!"
The huge pool of water—I quickly saw that it was an underground lake, and my fellow Troopers fought on a cross-shaped platform extending from the one door leading out—was deeper than I think Shu'd expected. I admired his courage, but he could also be a little too stupidly headstrong at times.
A bull in a china shop, I think Touma had once called him.
Faster than I'd ever swum before, I darted down into the murky depths. He sank incredibly fast, the bulk of his armor accentuating his already considerable weight. Suiko was faster, though, and luckily far stronger in the water than I could ever be—and in my current state, I relied on it completely to help lug Shu back to the surface.
He came up spluttering and coughing, but very much alive as I pulled him into a surprisingly shallow spot beside the dock-like projection. "What were you thinking, you big baka? You know how bad you are around wa—why in the name of all the gods are you laughing? You think this is funny?" I shouted indignantly.
The idiot was definitely laughing, even as each sound got caught in another cough or wheezing, lung-imploding choke. "That's my Shin. Glad to see you back to normal, bud," he croaked around another minor fit of coughing.
My cheeks flushed, though I attributed it to my sudden physical activity more than…some other things I should have been acutely aware of. I was too distracted by how strongly Suiko hummed with energy, direct contact with its element more than sufficient to hold me upright. Sadly, I would unlikely be able to leave the water and help the others; if I left it, my malnourished body would be unable to support me.
Once Shu had managed to catch his breath, we turned our somber attention to Ryo, Touma, and Seiji as they attempted to fend off a foe that I did not recognize. "Man, they're getting their asses handed to them," he commented worriedly.
I smiled at his concern. "Go. Help them. I'll be fine—thanks to your decidedly ungraceful rescue attempt," I teased with a gentle nudge toward the edge of the pier.
His eyes were decidedly un-teasing when he caught my upper arm in one hand. We stayed like that for a good five seconds, my breath caught in my throat and some indecision warring behind his eyes. "Stay safe," he finally said, voice choked with untold emotion.
I could only nod as he turned away, easily hefting his huge bulk from the water and then sprinting to join the guys.
While I desperately wanted—needed—to follow him, my body still screamed at me to rest, despite Suiko's heightened reserves. So I allowed myself a few moments, sinking down to my knees where the shallow water lapped across my neck. Another minute or two will be soon enough—right? I thought.
Wrong.
My surprised yelp was muffled behind a too-familiar gauntlet, his presence so overwhelming at my back that I wondered how he could have possibly snuck up on me. Suiko guided me through my first instincts—an elbow to what I guessed was a thigh, an attempt at surging to my feet so I could kick—but those efforts got me nowhere despite yoroi-enhanced strength.
No no no no—I promised Shu—
"Your protectors can't help you, Suiko," Naaza hissed. I sobbed into his hand, hope swiftly traded for despair when I ceased struggling. His other hand slowly fingered my chestnut hair, as if tasting some fine wine; my body trembled at the touch. "You're mine, now."
And then three things happened at the same time.
First, something shoved Naaza away before wrapping into a bubble around me that blocked the light. I heard water sloshing inside whatever strange container this was.
Second, even from within what I felt to be earth, I could hear Ryo, Touma, and Seiji call out their surekills.
Third, Naaza howled with rage and pain.
That brought a tiny smile to my mind, though my body was too shaken to truly make the motion.
There wasn't much time to think about that; the combined power of the Sou En Zan, Rai Ko Zen, and Tenku Ha roared around my little cocoon. Cracking earth told me what I couldn't see—that the combined might had melted and glazed the outside, barely leaving me protected from the highly dangerous sodando attacks.
When at last the chaos had stopped making my ears ring in the confined space, I slumped into my little personal pool. I could feel the other yoroi close around me, bolstering me with the excess energy from their surekills.
The cracking of the earthen ball startled me from my relaxation, my first wild thought that Naaza was back for me already. I plastered my back against the side furthest from the crack, even as dim outside light shone in my eyes and my friends' presences through the yoroi connection sought to soothe me.
A familiar orange-gauntleted hand extended toward me when the two halves fell away with a noisy splash. No one said a word, though the first eyes I saw spoke louder than any verbal communication would have.
Not caring how it would seem to them, I used the last of Suiko's strength to throw myself at Shu, burying my face in his neck and letting all the fear and horror translate into a waterfall of tears. His arms tightened protectively around my back as I felt him sink to his knees, one hand cradling my head to his shoulder. "It's okay, Shin. It's alright. We're all here. We're back together, and nothing is going to hurt you if I—we have anything to say about it."
As touching as the moment was, my friends would have to ruin it with our typical dogpiling hugs.
-/-
I'm still in disbelief at how we possibly managed to cobble the last of our strength together to finish off Arago. Resting in that youjakai pool certainly helped, but I was still a bit of a wreck going into the last confrontation. It took the final drop of everything I had to help Ryo destroy Arago forever.
When next I could recall anything, I found myself lying on the futon in my room at Nasté's house. Though I missed sharing with Shu, everything had changed when they found out I was a girl. And despite Ryo still having to recoup from the first assault against Arago, he'd insisted I switch with him. Now, the last vestiges of daylight were sinking below the horizon, gilding the lake in gold and fire—of which I had an excellent view through the balcony window.
Feeling the restless urge to leave my bed, I shakily rose and half-stumbled toward the balcony. Luckily the door had been pushed aside to allow a fresh summer breeze into my room. Suiko sighed contentedly upon sighting the lake, settling the restlessness in my soul in a way that could only be surpassed by diving head-first into its inviting waves.
Some time must have passed—and I likely caught up in daydreams—because it was only when I felt a gentle touch on my shoulder that I realized someone stood behind me. I went to spin quickly around (perhaps I would have put my fists up defensively), but I was still dealing with the effects of malnutrition and couldn't hold my balance.
Strong arms snagged me around the waist, propping me against a body that seemed soft but in fact rippled with muscle. It took a moment, but over the adrenaline making my heart pound and my feeble attempt at struggling, I finally realized who held me.
And felt my face go Rekka-red once more.
"Wow, take it easy there, White Blaze," he advised with no small hint of amusement. "You're still weak as a kitten."
I made another half-hearted attempt at swatting him for that, but smiled tiredly. "Thanks…even though it was your fault you snuck up on me."
Shu merely grinned, helping to right me on my feet. "You always were a pretty heavy daydreamer, Shin. I think even a Tin Can could have snuck up on you just now."
Though it was meant teasingly, a shadow came over me at the reminder of how helpless I'd been. I lifted a hand to rub my shoulder, looking away from him and back out to the lake that sparkled like fallen stars. (Almost disinterestedly, I realized someone had changed my knifed shirt and ruined jeans for a set of PJs—I guessed it was Nasté.) "Y-yeah, I guess…" The exhale I made then came out more like a sigh. "I probably deserved to get caught, then, didn't I?"
"Shin."
The fierceness with which he said my name shocked me into looking at him again. Dark grey eyes burning with protectiveness made my gut clench in a way I'd never felt before. "You are a Samurai Trooper. You are the Suiko bearer. Nothing that happened to you in battle was your fault. You don't deserve anything less than the best from anyone, and you certainly don't deserve any of the maltreatment you got from any of the Masho."
His words, as kindly as they were said, still made me flinch. The pain was too fresh, the what if's too real in my mind's eye. Apparently he noticed, because a soft touch on my shoulder managed to regain my attention. "Shin, it's not dishonorable to feel pain. After what you went through, especially, it's understandable to feel off-center. We—I'm here for you, if you need someone to lean on."
It wasn't until he said that—looking at me with more tenderness than I'd ever seen—that I noticed what was going on. The realization took me off-guard, an almost irrational fear closing off my throat and making me shake.
Or maybe it was just the fact I was exhausted. It was an easy thing to miss-attribute.
Apparently he didn't quite know what was happening either; his demeanor became more hesitant, the hand at my shoulder hovering uncertainly. "Shin…"
I shook my head, stepping back toward the balcony doors despite my precarious balance. "Shu—I can't—I'm just—what happened—"
Shu's hands came up to shoulder level, a placating gesture. "I-It's okay, Shin, I'm not here to hurt you. I just—I…"
I paused as he struggled with words, thinking that he was actually pretty cute when tongue-tied. And then I let that train of thought continue; I hadn't allowed myself the luxury during the war, but now we found ourselves near the end of summer break and school about to start up again. Before long we'd be heading back to our old lives, the yoroi fresh in our minds but (hopefully) unneeded. I found myself wondering, though—what of our newfound friendship? There was no way, with the bonds of war we'd forged, we'd be able to just forget and let go.
Part of me, presented with what I thought Shu was trying to say, certainly didn't want to let go. But the events in the youjakai had left me shaken and still too weak to really think right. I needed time to recover, time to figure out what I—what we—were going to do about the rest of our lives.
Suddenly, high school seemed far too insignificant to take seriously.
Aw, who'm I kidding? To Hell with the consequences.
It took two strides stronger than I'd thought myself capable of, and my lips were pressed to his.
He went stock-still, frozen in place as I pulled back and waited for his response. Where incoherent blubbering had been, there was silence. I was close enough to watch his neck move with a subtle swallow; his eyes went glassy, jaw hanging a little looser than normal.
"Uh, Earth to Shu?" I passed a hand back and forth over his eyes, thinking maybe I'd broken something in him. "You okay?"
Apparently he was, because my words jolted him from wherever he'd gone. Before I quite knew what else was going on, I found his hands pulling my body to his and his mouth warm over mine. My knees went weak, and for once it wasn't thanks to youja poison or fear.
"Shu, Shin, Nasté wants to ta—minna?"
We made to jump apart, shocked at Seiji's intrusion, but I nearly collapsed at the sudden burst of energy I really did not have. Luckily Shu realized his error and was quickly there to catch me—which left us sprawled in a tangled heap on the wood balcony.
"Ow… Seiji, for once did you forget your manners or something? You could have knocked," Shu berated, rubbing his shoulder where it'd painfully hit the deck.
I'd never seen the Date heir try to act so nonplussed even though it was obvious the shock we'd given him. "You did leave it ajar."
I almost giggled at Shu's head thumping back to the deck, a deeply exasperated sigh tickling my ear. "Well, guess that cat got out of the bag real quick…"
My image of Seiji sternly crossing his arms appeared sideways in my vision. Even as he tried to lecture Shu about "Here Naste sends you up with food for poor Shin, but when I come up to check on you two I find you're feeding her mouth to mouth", I couldn't possibly take him seriously. Eventually, it was more than I could bear. My muffled giggles turned into full-fledged belly laughs that didn't stop even as Shu managed to wrestle his way to his feet and hoist me into his arms. Luckily, I was too tired to keep it up long; stifling them on Shu's chest helped a little bit.
"She really is just as exhausted as Ryo, huh?" Seiji commented softly.
"I can still hear you, y'know," I said loudly, voice still directed into Shu's body.
The thought occurred to me that I was acting almost drunkenly, though I'd never had a sip of alcohol in my life. Guess I'll have to compare when I get to the point I can have some.
By the time I could focus on my surroundings again, Shu had laid me back in bed and was pulling the covers over to tuck me in. I giggled again at the shy smile he gave me—I couldn't help it. Now that things had calmed down a bit, I could also see the bowl of ramen broth that he'd carried up while I was distracted earlier.
Though we still hadn't exactly figured out what this whole thing meant, I was very content to let Shu nurse me back to health, starting with that single bowl of plain broth.
-/-
"Hey, Shu, you forgot Shin's matcha ice cream!"
I shook my head good-naturedly at Touma's teasing reminder. "Easy, otaku, I'm sure he's got it under control."
"Says the one who's never slow to yell at him the moment he takes his eyes off you," Ryo quipped cheekily.
I reached over and cuffed him for that one, though also grinning at our antics.
"Now, now, children, no fighting at the table," Shu chided, joining in on the joke. My ice cream appeared in front of me with a flourish of his arm. "Hand-churned matcha ice cream, courtesy of Mama Shu, for my adorable little samurai. Eat up, koibito."
Predictably, all three of the others made mock faces of disgust and horror at Shu's little nicknames for me. It had almost become a game for us—how quickly could we make them stomp out of the room at our sickeningly sweet back and forth. More often than not, Seiji was the last man standing, although even his impenetrable mask usually started crumbling before we gave up the charade in a fit of cackling.
Life had gotten much better after the end of the war. While we were all still sorting through some of the aftershocks a year later, we were young and bounced back pretty quickly. School's monotony helped, though that also made it so much harder to pay attention after dealing with something as exciting as demon soldiers trying to take over the world.
Naaza still invaded my sleep, once in a while. I'd wake in a cold sweat, shaking with remembered terror, only to find Shu already sliding through my door and onto the futon beside me. It didn't take us long to figure out that it was our yoroi alerting him to my distress. The thought made me exceedingly glad that we'd convinced our respective guardians to allow us to semi-permanently crash at Nasté's house while school was in session. I don't think my sanity would have survived if I'd had to return to Hagi while Shu stayed in Tokyo.
Sometimes I wonder if the yoroi hadn't a hand in that, as well. They could be sneaky little buggers when they wanted.
The Shu family restaurant (I suppose I should have started calling him Rei Faun, though force of habit was hard to break) became our favorite hang-out spot. Mama Shu took to us like I did to the yari, treating us like just another part of the family. Some nights we'd get the whole place to ourselves and have a bang-up time rehashing stories from the war—even going so far, when the windows were blacked out, as to attempt summoning each other's yoroi.
I still wonder how no one came in on us trying that stunt.
I suppose that sort of summed everything up. While we were going through the war, each turn seemed like it would be our last. Everything we went through, while it was happening, felt excruciatingly difficult and painful. We might still get phantom shivers from old wounds or quickly turn to face a threat that wasn't there on particularly dark nights. Personally, my memories of being held by the Empire were some of the worst I had.
In the end, however, we were just kids. We managed to laugh about it later, to make fun of the Masho's silly boasts or crack up at some stupid comment one of us thought had sounded brave. Slowly, each told their part so that the entire story came together in one big coherent piece.
And that was how the legend of the Samurai Troopers became real.
A/N: Well, folks, there you have it! Not my first Ronin Warriors/Yoroiden Samurai Trooper fanfic, but the first one FINISHED (OMG) and posted. And also the first one in the YST universe instead of RW; I go back and forth on which names I prefer, though ask me about voice actors and I won't hesitate to say YST (the original Japanese is just dreeeeamyyyyy). I also have no idea how in the world I ended up writing a Cye/Kento/Shin/Shu piece (aside from the fact it's genderbend), because I'm totally a Rowen/Touma or Sage/Seiji girl, and Rowen has had the majority of my attention for the past few weeks, but that's writing for you. The idea literally just struck me as I was waking up this morning, and while I couldn't recall the exact imagery that pushed me into it, I'm still very please with this marathoned piece. Seriously it took me about 8 hours to get this down-so please forgive me for any rough spots, or the fact I feel like it's basically a disjointed conglomeration of related episodes that don't really have a point other than putting Shin in bad situations and having Shu get her out of them and then having them wind up together. *shrugs* I'm just going to chalk this one up to fluff and let my muse have her day.
Feel free to drop me a line about this or any of my other fanfiction-and stay tuned for more Ronin Warrior goodness!
~ZeldaMoogle