Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Ryo Sanada crammed his hands into his pockets and tried vainly to think of something good to talk about. Beside him, Ami Mizuno walked silently, staring straight ahead, a shade of light pink dusting the ridges of both her cheeks. He had no idea if he'd done something to put her off or if this was normal, but she'd been nearly catatonic since he'd met her outside of her apartment building twenty minutes ago.

When Seiji and Touma'd worked this all out with Aino and Mizuno, Ryo hadn't paid much attention to the strategy that paired a Senshi with a Trooper as they waited out the enemy's next move. Honestly, when a quick conversation had revealed that the Senshi had been fielding attacks like the one that'd taken Kino out for months, Ryo had been all for making sure nobody was left alone. It made sense, right?

It wasn't even like these were selected pairings. It was more like whoever had matching schedules just…did stuff together. Mizuno's schedule was sort of crazy, so as the guy who was currently…in between jobs at the moment, Ryo was the one who could most easily watch her back.

It was a really cute back, to be fair.

And a really cute front too.

Ryo flushed to the roots of his hair, appalled at the direction his thoughts had taken. That they kept taking, because somehow her combination of painful shyness and serene calm, even when she was anxious, just…did things to his heart rate. It didn't help that her face was angelically beautiful either.

Not like he should take himself seriously.

Ryo forced his gaze to focus ahead of them and furrowed his brow, dragging his mind back to the situation instead of the people. He cast a quick look around, scanning their surroundings for anything dangerous, but honestly he didn't expect much of anything so early in the morning with so many people around. Things seemed very normal at the moment. Boring.

But boring was good! Boring meant nobody was getting hurt or at risk of dying or having their soul sucked out into a demon lord's dark dimension.

Boring was great.

Ryo shot a look at Mizuno again out of the corner of his eye. She was still walking with that thousand-yard stare aimed at a whole lot of vague nothingness. Her cheeks were still rose-tinted, and he wondered what was going on in her head right now. Was she feeling ok? Should he worry about her being sick?

They reached the front of the hospital where she worked, and Ryo was just turning, relief filling him at the end of whatever this awkward walk had been, to wave over his shoulder. He really should have known better, by now, what boring generally meant for the peace of his day.

The sound of shrieking metal and shattering glass exploded with a shockwave of sound that rolled like a tsunami up and down the street. It deafened him for a moment.

Pedestrians began screaming and moving, chaos unfurling as people moved to get away from the source of the noise. Ryo froze, his steps faltering as the rest of his body tried to catch up with his ears. He turned, feeling as though he were underwater, just in time to watch something massive and monstrous fly past him with so much force it felt like he'd been standing next to an express train.

Whatever it was rammed into Mizuno and kept moving with the momentum, sliding to a stop in the middle of the intersection. Mizuno's crumpled body lay all the way across the street beneath a window with a corresponding body-shaped web of shattered glass fracturing its glossy, reflective surface.

Time sped up immediately – almost too quickly, as if everything had swung into overdrive. His experiences and training as a Trooper had all been honed into a fine-tuned instinct now, and before he was even aware of what he was doing, he was between where she lay and the thing in the middle of the street, his undergear up, body poised to defend.

He was just in time to catch an armful of something that smelled like roadside carrion in high summer. He gagged, twisting and using the force of his opponent's assault to bring them to ground. A wet, nasty snarl shook the air near his ear, a distressingly hot breath skittering down his neck as whatever it was let him know it wasn't happy to see him.

That was fine. Ryo wasn't exactly thrilled either.

He lashed out blindly, fist connecting with something very, very solid. It took effort, but he managed to push through on the assault, rewarding himself with some breathing space that smelled a lot more like fresh air. He surveyed the thing as it pulled itself out of the side of a delivery van that was now much closer to scrap metal than a van. Ryo winced. This was not really a great place to be throwing things around – himself or anything else.

He studied the thing, trying to determine the best course of action. He really wished Touma or Seiji or really any of the Troopers were here. They'd help him figure out how to take this monster down with minimal damage or risk to civilians.

It took an effort for him not to look at Mizuno or run to her side. She could be bleeding out, she could have life-threatening injuries – she probably needed to be in the hospital across the street now, but he couldn't take care of her and take on this monster, so he focused his attention where it was needed most and hoped that the civilians around would help her.

In front of him, the monster was shaking itself off, looking dazed and very, very pissed off. It was tall. Taller than him by at least two meters. Which…not ideal, but not the worst he'd ever dealt with. It was wearing ancient samurai armor. Thankfully, he didn't recognize the armor, so hopefully this had nothing to do with the Youjakai. Not that that had ever indicated their lack of involvement before.

Unlike the Youjakai, however, this armor had a body still in it. And like, a body that had probably died awhile ago. Gross. Seriously. It righted itself and snapped its focus not to him, but over his shoulder to the approximate location Mizuno had dropped. Rage fired along his synapses and he growled.

"Over here, shithead," he snapped. It cast him a sidelong look, considering him. Looked back over his shoulder briefly, then back at him. Decision made, apparently, it went straight at him. Almost faster than he could see.

He had just enough time to get his forearm up to block a sword that looked like it should have shattered on impact but instead hit with a worrying about of force. Being the shorter of the two, Ryo didn't exactly have the best leverage against something that towered over him and so could press down with all its weight fairly easily.

A massive ball of icy water rammed into it from the side, catching Ryo off guard. For a moment he wondered if someone had opened a fire hydrant – which, was actually fairly smart? – lots of water, lots of pressure.

Instead, Mizuno was standing near him, her gaze frigid. She was, for some reason, dressed in a short-skirted sailor suit trimmed in blues. Touma had described Kino using lightning. This was, Ryo thought, a shade beyond someone flicking around some elemental magic.

Mizuno didn't miss a beat, instead gesturing gracefully and following up the icy water with another attack that involved a harp for some reason?

Whatever. If it got rid of the monster Ryo didn't really care what she was up to right now. He turned, and then blinked at the Samurai Zombie ice sculpture sitting in the middle of the road.

"Well. Not how I wanted to spend my morning," Mizuno muttered. She was messing around with her watch for some reason. "Senshi – I need back-up. I'm at the hospital," she said to it.

"Venus here. On my way. Should be to you in ten," a tinny voice echoed back from the watch.

What?

"Mars reporting in. I'm closer, should be to you in five. Can you keep it subdued?" a different voice asked. Mizuno nodded at her wrist.

"It's on ice for now. I'll hold things together until you're here," she replied.

"Sailor Moon is on the way!" another voice chirped loudly. Mizuno winced.

"Usagi-chan, I think Venus and Mars should be plenty. Stand by for now," she replied, grimacing slightly.

"Are you sure Mercury? I don't want to take any chances," the cheerful voice fretted. Mizuno nodded vigorously. "Yes, I'm sure," she replied quickly.

"Does anyone need – " "NO!" Mizuno and all the other voices cut off a new voice.

"Jupiter you get out of that bed and I'm going to think maybe Hashiba can't keep you contained and you'll have to stay with me instead," the first voice continued angrily.

Mizuno was nodding along with it.

"Venus is correct. If I find out you tried to do anything other than rest and recover, I will be very disappointed in you," Mizuno agreed in a flat tone of voice. A strange silence swept over the conversation for a moment.

"Right. So uh, be there soon," Venus' voice said then, breaking the silence with a cough. Mizuno nodded and did something to her watch, cutting off the noise.

Ryo couldn't help but stare at her. She caught him looking and flushed, ducking her gaze as if she'd forgotten he was there. Rolling with it, he pointed at her.

"Back up?" he asked. She nodded an affirmative and Ryo gave her a thumbs up before turning to move in a curious circle around the demon that'd disturbed their morning. It was probably like…undead or something right? It looked undead. Also, he needed to talk to Touma about Mizuno's fancy watch. Because the Troopers should definitely have fancy watches they could use to talk to each other. How had he not known that was a thing?

"Any idea what it is?" he asked idly.

"It appears to be a deceased organic life form – likely human – that has been infused with a massive dose of some kind of dark energy. I'm getting traces of resentment, but overall, there seems to be an element of compelling magic embedded beneath everything. I can't trace it back to its source, but if we find a means of severing the connection, it should facilitate a cessation of animation in the entity," she replied, looking down at a computer in her hand.

A computer that had not been anywhere like ten seconds ago.

He was rolling with it, right? This was all fine.

"Um. What?" he asked, realizing a split second later that he didn't understand half of what she'd said. For some reason, this made her flush again, and she ducked her gaze shyly.

"That is – ah – there's a kind of dark energy that's fueling the monster. If we can cut it off we should be able to stop it," she murmured in a voice so low he almost didn't hear her.

"Right. Energy. So how do we do that?" he asked, turning his gaze back toward the thing. Shyness forgotten, Mizuno furrowed her brow.

"I'm not sure exactly. Unfortunately right now the most direct method is to destroy the body the energy is possessing so it has nothing to possess. That, of course, presents several problems. This is hardly the place for that sort of battle. Honestly, I'm hoping Mars can just incinerate it," she explained.

Ryo blinked again. "Incinerate it? Like set it on fire?" he asked. Mizuno nodded, and Ryo scratched the back of his head. "Um. So I can definitely light stuff on fire if that's what you need," he offered. "Just like you said – this is probably not best place to explode things?" Mizuno's gaze turned considering, and Ryo tried not to squirm, being on the receiving end of a stare so intense.

"I could put up a barrier of ice around us?" she countered after a moment. A minor wave of discomfort swept over him.

"Like…how strong is the ice?" he asked hesitantly.

"So that went well," Sanada said with nervous optimism. Ami tried not to stare at him or their very charred surroundings too hard. He wasn't necessarily wrong. No major structures or people were harmed at least. It had taken a heroic effort on Ami's part to pivot at the last moment and encase the asphalt beneath the monster in ice before a giant hole appeared in the street.

"Wow. You managed to char asphalt?! What did you guys do?!" Venus' voice was particularly grating at this moment. Ami massaged her temples and furrowed her brow, trying to will her headache away. She supposed she ought to be pleased at least that she had been strong enough to stop his atom bomb of flame from utterly destroying an entire city center. Really, an accomplishment she could applaud herself for.

However, right now she very much wanted to go lie down. Instead, she turned her gaze to Venus and Mars, dipping her head in Sanada's direction. "Sanada was kind enough to eliminate the threat," she said diplomatically.

Her remark was met with a moment of heavy silence.

"…Did he eliminate it with an atom bomb?" Venus finally snarked. Ami shrugged.

"Possibly," she allowed. "I didn't have time to assess whatever ability he used."

"Uh. The Rekka Armor uses fire-based attacks?" Sanada explained helpfully. He'd shed said armor almost as soon as the attack completed. Venus and Mars stared at him for a moment.

"Well. At least you didn't wreck anything?" Venus asked, trying to be upbeat. Sanada grinned at her enthusiastically and waved a hand in Ami's direction.

"That's all her. She iced everything over so I could take it out safely," he supplied helpfully. Venus and Mars now turned their stares in her direction – Venus uncomfortably intent and Mars uncomfortably shrewd. Ami raised her hands.

"I need time to conduct an analysis," she said, trying to stave off the inevitable interrogation. And a nap she added silently.

"I'll keep you company?" Sanada asked enthusiastically. Now Mars and Venus were staring at both of them.

Ami wondered if the day could get any worse from here and resigned herself to no nap and a very long and awkward afternoon.