Chapter Sixteen
"Hey!" Sailor Venus greeted, after using her attack to dust several Raikken.
Sailor Moon let out a sigh of relief, before glomping the blonde Scout, "You okay?"
"Fine," she brightly chirped. "Saturn too." She motioned to the Outer Senshi who had come out of the tunnel behind her.
"See, knew I heard her," Mars commented to the Senshi of Pluto as they came out of the tunnel they had followed.
"Mars!" Sailor Moon proceeded to glomp her too.
The Fire Senshi sighed heavily through her nose, and rolled her eyes, "Hi."
At that moment, the Senshi of Jupiter and the Galaxy made their presence known, both having knocked a few Raikken out of the tunnel they were in, before destroying them.
"Gang's all here," Jupiter joked, motioning to Uranus and Mercury who had emerged from the final tunnel.
"Cute," Uranus commented rolling her eyes. "Certainly took us all long enough to find one another."
"Not like the enemy was being helpful, or our trinkets," Neptune said with a wry smile.
Sailor Moon was silent as she looked around her…Something was wrong, this place it felt too familiar and it made her skin crawl and stomach turn.
"Where are we?" she nervously queried. "I know this place. We've been here before."
Saturn warily scanned her surroundings, "Not sure."
"Okay," Sailor Mars brought in now with a frown. "If they let us find each other, does that mean the same for the Ronin?"
"Most likely," Pluto offered up. "They wanted to wear us down, that way we would not be as strong as a group."
"That, or they are getting impatient," Jupiter snorted out, whirling around upon hearing the approach of Raikken…A lot more Raikken.
Galaxy sighed heavily through her nose, "Here we go."
They managed to deal with the Raikken well enough. It had almost become routine now. Fight a demon, destroy it, move on to the next, and repeat the process.
"So, who aside from me," Jupiter brought in with a bored yawn, "Finds these fights to be overly redundant?"
It just felt, well, like it was getting old, that they were doing far too much of the same thing and not getting anywhere. To say the very least, it was absolutely frustrating.
Pluto shook her head, commenting with, "Be careful of what you wish for. We've been lucky that the fights have been light and easy to counter."
"That could easily change though," Saturn brought in now, hands instinctively tightening around her glaive. She could feel it, there was a shift of negative energy just about to occur.
"Yeah, but it is still tiring," Sailor Moon remarked, blinking as the minimal light in the cavern slowly started to fade. In an instant, it had suddenly gotten very dark.
"Uh oh," Galaxy said, scowling a little, "Ya jinxed us."
"Heh," the Senshi offered in response, lightly shrugging her shoulders.
When the Raikken slid out of the shadows this time, the Senshi were not as well prepared for the attack. Nor were they anywhere near as strong since the darkness gave the demons a hefty advantage.
"Oh man," Glacia grimaced going from a sprint to a dead run now.
Aarde felt the earth beneath her feet tremble, as she moved, "What is going on?"
"Take it they're stepping things up," Empyrean called over her shoulder, having managed to take the lead now. However, the ground beneath them violently lurched again.
Nova let out a gasp as the earth beneath her feet completely gave way, and she was left mid-air with nothing to grab onto for support.
"Gotcha!" Glacia announced having managed to find a root to grab for support, and then latched onto her leader.
Nova let out a sigh, one of instant relief, before dryly remarking as she looked down, "Found the other Senshi."
"Hey!" Saturn jovially called up to them, a grin on her face, "Found a good vantage point?"
"Ha ha," Nova bit out, angrily saying, "Just you wait till I get down there."
Empyrean and Aarde had managed to avoid getting caught in the rock slide, both know looked over the edge with their hands on their knees…Surveying the fighting below them.
"Good," Mercury's voice rang out from somewhere. "Hurry it up, we could use the back up."
"Coming," Nova called back, still very much hanging onto her teammate whom she now turned her attention to, "Heh, just drop me."
"Fine by me," the Senshi of Water and Ice quipped, immediately letting her go.
Nova let out a yelp as she began to plummet towards the ground, and screeched, "Not YET!"
"Whoops?" Glacia offered to Aarde and Empyrean who were just gaping at her.
Both were understandably shocked that the Water Senshi had done such a thing, normally she never did anything without giving some form of resistance to her leader. For her to just go through with an order, however lightly implied, was simply unheard of.
The Water Senshi just rolled her eyes as they continued to stare, and jumped down…That got them out of their stupor, and they were quick to follow.
Nova managed to recover enough to land somewhat on her feet, though she ended up crashing into a Raikken that had snuck up behind Sailor Mars.
"Thanks."
"Not a problem," the Elemental Leader was a little less than enthusiastic when she said that, and immediately her eyes landed on Glacia.
The Scout felt the look on her, and without even bothering to turn around she snorted out, "Don't look at me like that. Not my fault for your failure to specify."
Nova's eye twitched.
"All right, kill each other later," Uranus amusedly remarked, slicing through a Raikken with her sword. She had ended up summoning the trinket the moment it had gotten too dark to see…The object itself produced a minimal amount of light, just enough to discern friend from foe.
"What's with the impending darkness bit?" Aarde queried.
"No idea," Venus answered, using her attack to cut through several Raikken. "You're welcome to take a guess."
Empyrean gave a snort, "Oh, that's comforting."
"If I had to take a stab at it," Mars dryly remarked. "It's to limit our powers, while increasing their's."
Pluto gave a snort, someone should have made a "no duh" comment, but it was not going to come from her.
"But why now?" Neptune pressed.
Sailor Moon had been the furthest away from the others, having gotten side-tracked by the Raikken…Suddenly she let out a yell, before collapsing.
"Sailor Moon!" the Inner Senshi hollered at her.
"What the-" Uranus gasped out, narrowly avoiding getting skewered countering by stabbing the Raikken.
Nova shook her head, "We need to see what's going on, in order to tell what happened."
She held out her right hand and made a fist, conjuring her element into her palm.
The cavern immediately started to lighten, and the Raikken closest to her quickly backing off not at all appreciating the bright light.
Jupiter had managed to get to her leader and help her to her feet, "Okay…" She motioned with her free hand, "What is that?"
Being able to see the enemy enabled the Outer Senshi to quickly deal with the remaining Raikken…Now all of them stood before the anomaly Jupiter was referring to.
Nova raised her hand up, the light still very much concentrated within her palm, "It looks like a wall of ice."
"Ice wouldn't have zapped her like that though," Mercury brought in, computer and visor already up. "It's energy, in an extremely raw form."
"What's more," Glacia brought in now a scowl on her face, "Is that I can sense the Ronin, Elemental and Seasonal, beyond this thing."
"Okay, so I'll ask the obvious question," Venus remarked, "Why's it blocking just us?"
Saturn was pondering this over herself, and turned to Pluto, querying, "Originally, Akemliek was said to be our foe, right?"
"Yes," the eldest of the Senshi gave a nod to the affirmative. "Why do you mention it?"
"Before the Council was disbanded they sealed off the powers Nee-sama had, the ones they gave to her," Saturn murmured aloud, eyes moving up and down the block. "But, they had to do something with that energy. You can't just seal off power without directing it somewhere."
"You mean they used that power to make this, to keep us out?" Mars was definitely skeptical. "Why would they do that?"
Neptune was scowling, "Neo said there were those who would do anything to ensure we all failed again. They were counting on us eventually coming here to fight Akemliek, this was their last way of doing us harm without being directly involved."
"Clever," Jupiter commented. "And, if she hadn't said this was the Ronins' fight, they would not have come at all."
"Meaning all that power was directed to keep us out, allowing them to move right past it," Galaxy murmured.
"Well, it explains why so much of her hair is white," Uranus mused aloud, "That's an awful lot of power to be without."
All the Senshi turned their eyes towards her, and she blinked upon realizing they were staring at her. She raised an eyebrow, "What?"
"You saw her?" Sailor Moon asked.
"Ya, before we came down here," the Scout of Uranus answered. "Apparently, she and Kayura, being guardians and all, are buddies and she visits for updates. I just woke up when I shouldn't have."
"Still," Jupiter grumbled out. "You're the only one of us to see her, other than the Elementals."
The four women had not that long ago admitted what had actually happened to restore their partners. After Kali's spell had latched onto them so deeply, Universe had sought out their help to fix the problem.
But, and they had stressed this; they had only seen her through dream it didn't mean she was alive. Now, of course, each of them knew better. Universe was alive and well, interfering where she could and when she wasn't supposed to.
"So? Uni and I go back a ways," Uranus shrugged her shoulders. "Don't take it personally, she never was much for working in a group anyway. Too independent for that."
"Okay, gals, not to intrude or anything," Aarde steered them all back to the problem at hand. "We need to figure out what we are going to do about our magical roadblock here."
Glacia hissed in a breath, "And preferably rather fast, because I don't like what I'm sensing from where the Ronin are, nor do I like the fact they are really far away. It's a miracle I'm even picking them up."
"Mercury?" Venus hopefully queried of the blue-haired Scout, who was still inputting data into her computer.
"Working on it."
"Okay, so just touching it will get us zapped," Galaxy mused before tossing her attack at the energy wall…It did nothing but splinter apart and come back at them, causing all the Senshi to duck.
"Oi!" Nova cried out, "Who'd you learn that one from, Kento?"
"Why not?" the Senshi retorted. "Elayne learned to be anti-social from Halo."
"Just quit it," Saturn told the both of them, getting back to her feet.
Mercury put away her computer, and turned off her visor, running a hand through her short blue-hair before letting out a sigh.
She was quiet for several minutes before she spoke, "It's a seal, so no amount of calculating or planning is going to help. We have to take it down; it's the only way through."
"Brute force, obviously, is not going to work on that," Aarde remarked in reference to Galaxy's little display.
"Power might though," the Senshi of Mercury continued. "We've had to do such things in the past. I'm sure you've had to combine your powers at one point or another as well."
The Elemental Leader gave a nod to this.
"So, all of us combining our energy and throwing it at that?" Uranus sounded skeptical.
"Ya, sounds like a sure fire way to get us all killed," Glacia conceded with a nod. "But if anyone has a better idea, I would love to hear it."
There were no better ideas, no other options they could possibly take. Either they could wait here and die, try and get passed this thing and die, or get passed it and die later…All roads basically led to death, it was just a matter of picking their poison.
Silence weighed heavily on them all…Before, the cavern filled with their voices as they called upon their powers and turned the collective energy loose on the barrier.
The Imperium Silver crystal gave a violent chime as the powers connected, and they all watched in shock as the wall shattered into pieces. The shards of energy vanished just before touching the ground.
"It worked!" Venus remarked, before letting out a whoop. All the Inner Senshi were obviously relieved, and even the Outer had smiles on their faces.
"Save the celebrating for later," Empyrean had jumped forward just as the wall broke, and now she went into a run.
"Ya, we still have Ronin to bail out," Nova remarked in amusement, before she and the other Sailor Elementals dashed off.
"Kill joys," Sailor Moon blandly commented.
The Outer Senshi laughed at this, before both groups darted after the four Elemental Senshi. There was no way for any of them to know, that they would arrive too late to stop what had already been set into motion.
Outside the Shinkwako Grounds
The tigers had patiently waited for the girl to reappear; she had disappeared inside just as their front paws had touched the Estate grounds. It hadn't taken her very long to change, and when she came back out she had been wearing a light jacket overtop of her clothing.
The crystal didn't exactly regulate her body temperature the way the armors and Senshi powers did. Not like it mattered to her, the jacket was only really for show so the white tiger wouldn't bug her about it.
They had walked in silence for a long while before White Blaze let out a disgruntled rumble, 'You should have worn a thicker jacket.'
"Look Mom," she scoffed and rolled her eyes, she had known he was going to make a comment sooner or later. "Anything heavier than a windbreaker will restrict my body movement. Even this will make fighting difficult if I have to do any, and I'm assuming I will with my luck."
'It'll be colder in the tunnels,' the white tiger pointed out.
Elayne gave a shake of her head, "I have minimal feeling remember? I can't even tell it's cold now, and it's dropped to like six degrees."
'Not like you care one way or the other, ne?' Black Blaze chuckled out.
"Exactly," the girl said with a nod, before frowning. "Hey you two, are we there yet? We've been walking for a half-hour already."
The great white tiger came to a halt as he checked over his surroundings, 'Hm, well it has definitely changed with all the time that has passed. But, I can tell that Rekka-cub went this way.' He continued with his languid walk.
"What are you? A bloodhound?" the girl jovially teased him, but her taunt went on ignored, except for the slight twitch of his tail.
As the three of them steadily plodded their way towards the enemy's domain, Elayne could feel that something was wrong. She wasn't quite sure what, but something was going on.
The knot that had been in her stomach tightened, and she suddenly felt as though someone had kicked her hard in the ribs. The girl went down on her knees and took in a shuddering gasp…The crystal around her neck glowed.
Both tigers had paused in their walk, and now swerved around to face her, very much alarmed.
'An?' White Blaze came to her side instantly, worry plaguing his brown eyes.
Black Blaze gently butted his head to her arm, and let out a low whine, but she made no move to respond or acknowledge them…She couldn't.
Her vision spun a moment, and then it felt as though everything around her stopped completely…Before reluctantly starting back up again. She let out a shaky breath, before reaching out and stroking both cats letting them know she was all right.
"It's the Senshi, they broke the seal," Elayne finally said after a moment or two of reflection.
'Then we best hurry,' the black tiger remarked, and White Blaze nodded in agreement.
Elayne drew herself to her feet, all traces of her earlier fit now completely gone, and without a word further the three broke into a run. The two tigers knew that every second wasted would be too costly, they had to get there before it was too late to be of use.
But, were they already too late?
1 Again, this is in Celsius. 6 degrees Celsius equals around 43 degrees Fahrenheit.
A/N: Happy St. Patty's Day! I figured I drew it out long enough and you were entitled to two more chapters...Especially when I plan on only letting you have one next month.
LG