Chapter Seventeen:
"Been rather quiet since the Senshi left," Sekhmet remarked as he and the swordsman of Halo continued their walk. Without the Senshi they had stopped to take fewer breaks in this seemingly endless walk to nowhere. Of course the downside for Sekhmet, was that there was no one to talk to.
Sage gave a snort, "Not really. You haven't been quiet for more than five minutes."
"Ho funny," the Fall Seasonal commented. "Not my fault your being quiet gives me the creeps."
The blond swordsman actually stopped dead in his tracks, the look on his face one of pure disbelief. Had the former Warlord of Venom just implied he was eerie?
"Sekhmet! You were a Warlord!"
"So?" the green haired man retorted with a scoff, and added, "You're still creepy."
Laughter sprang up from around them, and a familiar voice slyly commented, "You should take that as a compliment Halo. Especially since it's coming from him."
Sage let out an annoyed growl, and said something he had always wanted to say, "Cale? Drop dead."
The Ronin of Torrent emerged from the same tunnel as the Winter Seasonal and blinked slightly taken aback by what he had just heard.
A frown framed Cye's face as he queried, "Ya all right there, Sage?"
"Oh yeah, I'm peachy," the man dryly answered, the sarcasm quite thick in his voice.
"Hey, since when have you vocalized your grumpiness?" Kento cheerfully inquired.
Sage had a smirk on his face, as he retorted with, "Hot dog."
"EH? What?" the bearer of Hardrock's left eye started to twitch.
Anubis let out a chuckle as he commented, "Good to see your spirit is well, Sage."
"Energy's been getting to me for a while now," the bearer of Halo admitted. "If I don't make an effort, the armor's just going to collapse on me."
"Doesn't he normally have to make an effort?" Kento muttered out his question. "The guy's usually got as much emotion as a Maneki Neko."
Cye heard this and blinked before sending the Ronin of Hardrock a reproving look. Kento merely mumbled out a 'what, it's true!' in response to it.
"Yup, they're definitely here," Kayura cheerfully announced, pausing to glance down, "Hi boys! How's it going down there?"
"Kayura, Rowen," Cale said in acknowledgement. "So nice of you to come."
Sekhmet gave a snort and rolled his eyes saying, "How about joining us?"
"Hm," the Lady Ancient put a finger to her lips, then turned to the archer, "Should we?"
"Mm, couldn't hurt," Rowen shrugged in response, before saying with a grin, "Ladies first."
"Why you're too kind," Kayura joked before jumping down.
Rowen chuckled and followed after her, "Ya. Just don't expect me to give up being a samurai in order to become a knight."
"Wouldn't dream of it," she said with a laugh.
All the others stared at the two of them, then at one another, and then back at them again. Obviously, they had seriously missed something. Kayura and Rowen getting along like that? Yep, they had definitely failed to receive the memo that went out.
"Well at least most of us are here now," Cye remarked. His main concern was for Ryo, the last time he had seen his leader had been just before they got separated.
The Ronin Leader had not looked that well off back then, the bearer of Torrent could only imagine how much worse his friend had gotten.
Anubis gave a nod, "Yes, but Ryo should be well." The Spring Seasonal seemed to know what was on the Ronin's minds. "Dais must be with him."
The four Ronin Warriors frowned, exchanged looks with one another, before nodding, and turning their attention to Anubis.
"Anubis," Rowen hesitantly began, looking to the Warrior of Strength for help.
Kento gave a loose, if not nervous, shrug of his shoulders, "We're not quite sure how to tell you this…"
"But, well, the truth is the matter is," Cye brought in now.
Sage gave a shake of his head, saying, "It's Ryo we're talking about."
"He's always in life-threatening danger," the four of them finished, and then let out despairing sighs.
The Spring Seasonal could only helplessly blink at what they had said, while Fall and Winter outright laughed.
"Oh, some friends you guys are," Kayura remarked though she was beyond amused at what had been said.
The Ronin of Hardrock gave another shrug, "We're his friends, and teammates. Doesn't mean we're going to lie." The other three nodded in agreement.
Now, the Lady Ancient laughed behind her hand, "You guys are too much."
Suddenly, the warriors tensed as they felt the rise in the negative energy surrounding them. It was quickly followed by the sounds of battle. Not a one of them said a word, as they ran towards where the noise was coming from and withdrew their weapons.
Outside the Entrance
Elayne drew to a halt as the two tigers running in front of her had slid to a stop. They were standing near a very long natural stone wall, but there was no entrance in sight.
'It ought to be here,' Black Blaze said sounding perplexed.
The girl's hazel-violet eyes rapidly scanned the rock in front of her, "It's an illusion, but the power they put into it must be strong enough to distort your ability to see through it."
She quietly approached the wall, before letting out a choked gasp quickly grabbing at her left arm as pain flared up within it.
Once more the white tiger was concerned, 'What is it?'
"The closer I get to where they are the more keenly I can sense the pain they're in," Elayne responded as she stepped forward forcing the pain from her mind and letting her hand drop back to her side. She traced her hand over the rock, and then it slid through, "Found the entrance, come on boys."
The tigers were quick to follow her; Blaze remained on her right side, while Black Blaze stationed himself to her left.
The air was thick and suppressive down here, but the trio did not bother to stop and take notice of it.
'It's been too long since I traversed these caverns,' the black tiger brought up. 'It all looks different.'
Elayne's breathing was still off, she was nervous it revealed itself when she spoke, "They've disrupted time and space here. It's not flowing right."
'Do we go through or around?' White Blaze queried of his two companions.
A frown was on Elayne's face as she thought it over, either option had the potential to take far too long. They didn't have time to waste with such flimsy traps.
"Neither," she finally announced, placing her hands over the crystal. The jewel gave a soft chime and reversed the energy's polarity, the distortion faded, letting normalcy over take the cavern.
'Impressive,' the black tiger murmured.
"No, just effective," the girl corrected him, before breaking into a run once more. The two tigers glanced at each other for a moment, gave the equivalent of a shrug and then took off after her.
Ryo dodged to the side and brought up his sword, easily impaling a Raikken on it. His blue-eyes shifted to the right and he didn't hesitate to dispose of the Raikken there.
For now, his breathing was even, his energy had stopped draining and he was at a point where he could fight without causing himself too much harm. He wasn't quite sure if it was his own energy, or the armor of Wildfire that was currently sustaining him. Either way, he just hoped it would last.
"Crap!" the Ronin of Wildfire hissed in a breath, one of the demons had snuck up behind him, and proceeded to slam into his armor.
He was jostled forward due to the great force with which he had been struck, and nearly into the two waiting spears…But someone sliced through the Raikken holding the weapons and it all burst into ash.
Ryo regained his footing easily enough, and let out a sigh of relief.
"Miss us?" Sage queried as he then turned around to deal with more of the demons.
The Ronin Leader chuckled in amusement, "You guys have excellent timing."
"Well," Cye cheerfully stated, "It's not like you are that hard to find."
Kento grinned coming to Ryo's left side, "Ya, if there's a fight you happen to be in the middle of it."
"Can't help myself," the raven-haired man joked. "Hung out with you too much."
"HEY!" the bearer of Hardrock exclaimed with an annoyed look on his face.
Starta's bearer chortled as he let out an onslaught of arrows, felling several dozen Raikken. "He's got ya there Kento."
Ryo shook his head at them in belated amusement…Here he had been worried about them, that they had face overwhelming odds and barely struggled to get by.
Yet, they were fine; if not slightly rowdier than what they normally were.
"Uh oh," the Warrior of Strength blinked as he noticed the number of Raikken were growing. As well as realizing something else, "We lost Kayura and the Seasonals."
"Are you kiddin me?" Strata's bearer queried as he continued his rapid-fire maneuver.
"Nope, he's not," Sage added in now, "Obviously, they don't want us in anything more than our own groups now."
"Obviously," Cye snorted out with a roll of his eyes.
The tigers did not bother to halt when the tunnel broke into two distinct passage, they merely took the left tunnel. Without the distortion they could easily sense where they needed to go, and the girl managed to keep pace with them.
They turned left once more, and then took a right. She didn't have to question their directions as she could sense where the Ronin were as well. The enemy just didn't seem to be capable of blocking abilities that worked different than the warriors…Not like any of them were going to complain about it.
'We are close,' Black Blaze announced, 'And I can hear the sounds of a battle not that much further ahead of us. I have no idea where the Senshi are.'
Elayne drew to a halt as they did, reaching out slightly with her senses and then pulling back, "They're behind us, by quite a way. With the distortion gone it'll be easier for them to get here, but it's going to take them at least twenty minutes, more than that maybe."
'Kayura-tachi is closer,' White Blaze looked to his right, 'Ten minutes that way. They're encountering heavy resistance though.'
'I am unsure as to what to do,' the black tiger rumbled quietly. 'I doubt my appearance will do anything to help the Ronin right now. Perhaps, I should stay here?'
"That's probably wise Kouken," Elayne said with a wry grin. "It's going to be hard enough for them to swallow that Blaze and I are here.
'Agreed,' he chuckled, 'I will wait here.'
"Easier for you than for us," Elayne called over her shoulder, as she chased after White Blaze who had immediately sprung off.
It was not that hard for her to catch up with the cat, for he had again come to a stop. The five were around the next bend; they were fighting and struggling to overcome the enemy.
"They're worn out," she worriedly mumbled to the tiger, being able to sense how they were from here. "And still very much scattered apart."
'Rekka-cub?' White Blaze inquired, looking to the girl for an answer.
Normally he could tell when his cub and his friends were in danger, and what type of danger they were in…But the massive energy down here in this domain had always disrupted his acute senses.
Elayne seemed to pale as she checked it further, "Bad, Wildfire's taken a real beating so has he. Come on Blaze, you didn't come all this way to sit on the sidelines and neither did I."
'Agreed,' the tiger said with a nod, before striking forward, the girl followed after him.
Dais materialized out of nowhere, as was normal for him, and came alongside Sekhmet, "Having fun?"
"Loads," the green-haired man grinned as he hacked through the Raikken
The Summer Seasonal permitted himself a chuckled before striking out at the enemy, and then falling in behind Kayura.
"Where have you been?" the Lady Ancient did not even have to look over her shoulder to know who was standing there.
"Around," the white-haired man offered in response before adding, "I was with Wildfire, but somehow they managed to push me out this far. Even with my leveling scores of the things."
Anubis heard this and scowled, "We need to get to him then."
"Of course, keeping us all preoccupied like this, Kali could engage him and force the Ronin to call Inferno," Cale nodded in understanding of the Spring Seasonal's message.
Kayura cut through the two Raikken she had been fighting with, "And we need to be there. There's no telling how Inferno will affect them, we have to assume the worst."
"Agreed," Dais commented.
Sekhmet snorted at their conversation, "Less talking, more fighting."
They merely rolled their eyes at him in response to that.
A/N:
Maneki Neko: The literal translation is "beckoning cat." They are those cat statues depicting the Japanese bobtail (most times), with it's paw raised. It was the only Japanese statue that I happened to know the name of, and one of my inside jokes with Yesterday's Tonic is that Sage is a cat; mainly because he acts like one.
And yay, we're actually getting to what I consider the good parts of the story. Anyone looking forward to the Ronins' reaction? Has Elayne lost her mind? I don't know, you hang out with people that used to save the world as teenagers, and now you're a teenager (and said world heroes continue to treat you like your nine)...Would you have that much sanity left? At any rate, see you at the next update!
LG