7th Moon

Sora had brought Zokushou in the mecha and gathered the espers into the passenger compartment. They were going to use the mecha to try to catch up to Douji as Sora had explained that the mecha was the fastest vehicle they had. They were amazed by the roomy compartment in the robot’s torso just below the cockpit. It was big enough for four people to sit comfortably and had a fiber optic monitor that allowed them all to see what was going on outside. They observed the landscape speeding by in a blur as the mecha quickly bounded across Kyushu, past Nagasaki, and leapt across the Kanmon Bridge back to Honshu Island.

“We’re headed to the NWE launch pad.” Zokushou explained. “If they’re going to take Douji back to Seventh Moon, they will have to go there first and we’ll cut them off at the pass. If you’re wondering about this passenger compartment it was intended for infantry transport. With large scale mecha warfare, it was assumed that a small squad could be taken behind enemy lines without anyone noticing. I guess we’re still using it that way.”

In moments they were speeding past Hiroshima and then the Sakuma Dam. Zokushou became concerned as they passed the Sakuma Dam because she didn’t see the mecha. “The Hiroshima mecha was assigned to Sakuma Dam. There aren’t a lot of places to hide and we intended for it to be visible so that we could intimidate enemy forces. There’s no sign of it, what the hell happened?”

“Do you think it was destroyed?” Hidariude asked.

“No, the parts would be lying around if that were the case.” Zokushou answered. “I fear it could be worse, it may have been captured by the enemy.”

Within just a few hours they were back to the Tokyo region and found the launch pad. Sure enough, the Hiroshima mecha was there. “It may not be the enemy, Commander.” Sora suggested. “Something may have happened that caused the pilot to move without being able to inform anyone. Remember, we haven’t reclaimed the airwaves, and the cellular networks are still down outside Tokyo, so there’s no way for him to contact the resistance for updates. Fortunately, I should be able to contact him through a close range radio.” Sora turned on the radio to transmit to the other mecha. “Hello Hiroshima this is Shuurikou on the Nagasaki. Come in Hiroshima.”

The answer they got was the Hiroshima turning around to fight the Nagasaki. It had its guns out and fired off a few rounds. Sora was quick enough to dodge the bullets. It tried to shoot again, but it had already run out of bullets. It dropped its guns and drew its swords. The blades were made of plasma, essentially huge welding torches designed to be wielded like swords. The energy source was the nuclear reactor that ran the mecha, which tended to produce excessive energy which could be transferred to the blades and released as plasma. This was a very difficult technology to control as its range increased so sword length blades were as far as it had gotten and was far too dangerous to be wielded by humans and so had only been implemented as a mecha weapon where it was practical to release nuclear exhaust. Shuurikou had applied the same technology to the Nagasaki, modeling it after Hidariude it had one blade that it could hold in one hand and another that was projected directly from the left arm. Both blades were drawn to duel with the Hiroshima.

“I really wish I didn’t have to do this.” Sora lamented. “I put so much work into restoring these things, I hate destroying them.”

“Maybe we don’t have to.” Zokushou suggested. “Do you three think you could help me take the mecha back?”

The espers thought quickly, then Hidariude answered. “I wouldn’t be much help here, I can’t produce enough voltage for my lightning blade to take down the mecha. But Kichiku’s quake palm could disable the mecha long enough for Keisei to get to the cockpit and take out the pilot.” Kichiku and Keisei nodded.

“Then it’s a plan.” Zokushou said. She opened the hatch and jumped out with Keisei and Kichiku. Kichiku landed first hitting the ground with enough force to shake up the Hiroshima. Without wasting any time, Keisei took Zokushou by the hand and bounded up the mecha’s leg to the hatch for its passenger compartment. Zokushou opened the door and Keisei jumped in.

Inside she found four slashers and saw a fifth in the pilot seat above. She quickly threw a paper bomb on each one then swung herself back outside with Zokushou. “Get back! Kayakujutsu detonate!” After the explosion, the mecha stopped moving with its pilot disabled. Keisei cleared out what was left of the robots and Zokushou took the controls.

“Nagasaki come in, this is Hiroshima. We have secured the mecha.” The victory was short lived though, a rocket went off behind them from the launch pad. They didn’t have to discuss it, the espers could sense Douji’s presence on the rocket, and they were too late.

The first idea they had was to storm the launch pad and look for another jet to follow Douji and his captors. The espers cut down the security robots and found the base controllers. “We need a jet now!” Hidariude demanded with blades drawn.

The controllers were stunned but managed an answer anyway. “I’m sorry but that’s impossible. That was the last jet, there isn’t another one here or anywhere in Japan. We would have to wait for another jet to return from Seventh Moon.”

“When will that be?” Hidariude asked, brandishing his blades again.

“We have no idea. They send jets according to their needs and don’t let us know until they launch from Seventh Moon.”

The espers returned crestfallen and reported back to the others. “What now?” Sora asked sadly.

Everyone stopped to think, mostly lost in despair. But they weren’t going to give up and finally Hidariude came up with an idea. “Sora, do you think you could repair an old jet if we could get you access to one?”

This was a matter of pride for Sora. “I can repair anything!”

“Then we’re going to Kanagawa!” Hidariude exclaimed.

The espers climbed back in the Nagasaki and the two mecha picked up all of the broken robots and grabbed a few more spare parts from the hangar, then proceeded south to Kanagawa. It didn’t take very long to reach their destination. They stopped at the lake at the foot of the mountain where the Shrine of the Golden Dragon stood. Here the mecha waded into the water and lifted out the jet that Hidariude and Keisei had arrived in over two years earlier and set it down on the bank.

Sora took a look at the jet, damaged from the crash, covered in lake weed and waterlogged to top it off. “Well, you certainly know how to challenge me.”

“So do you think it’s beyond repair?” Hidariude asked.

“I didn’t say that.” Sora replied. “I just said it would be a challenge. This is going to take a while, but we don’t have a choice, this is the only way we can get Douji back. No matter how long it takes we have to try.”

Sora began work on the jet. He seemed to have everything he needed with parts from the robots that he could rework into parts for the jet and some tools that he always carried with him in case of emergency. Zokushou assisted him as needed and they started to make quick progress.

The espers felt somewhat useless just watching the repairs. They decided to go back to the shrine to reminisce and pray. The shrine looked exactly the same as they had left it only a few weeks ago. It was very somber for them, they had always known they would never see Ryu alive here again, but they never imagined they would return without Douji. It felt twice as empty missing two of their family members.

Their first stop was the main shrine. They opened the seal together and entered the shrine. They gathered before the statue of the golden dragon and bowed to it. “Oh great Shinryuu, forgive us for failing to guard your Yoshiromi, Douji. He is very near and dear to our hearts, we really want to get him back and we ask for your help in our plan to retrieve him. Our friend Sora is repairing a spacecraft in order for us to return to Seventh Moon. Please aid him in his efforts and grant us safe passage to and from the Seventh Moon.”

After praying directly to the golden dragon, they each took some time to pray at their respective branch shrines. This was a somewhat more futile effort since they now knew that they were the reincarnations of these deities and were therefore praying to themselves, but they were desperate and sought guidance from their past lives. Try as they might to remember their past lives they received no wisdom from eight hundred years ago. However, they did find themselves being drawn to another part of the shrine grounds, the three cherry trees that Ryu had planted.

The cherry trees had always been Ryu’s special spot. He always tended to the trees and never let them come to help him. He said they were a special pet project he had taken over from his late wife Sakura who had started them as bonsai in memorial of the three lesser kami and the guardian priests who kept vigil at the shrine. Sakura had taken the trees to Seventh Moon as a sort of portable shrine to remember her home when she was far away from it.

The cherry blossoms had just reached full bloom when Ryu had died here a few weeks ago. Now the cherry blossoms were just reaching the end of their lives and started to drop off the tree. Keisei noticed the first petal fall and as a wind picked up, a pink rain of cherry blossom petals began to surround them. As the cherry blossoms swirled in the air, three figures seemed to manifest. Two of the figures they did not recognize though they seemed to strongly resemble a woman and a man not entirely unlike Keisei and Kichiku. The third figure however was surprisingly familiar.

“Master Ryu!” All three espers exclaimed together. “Is it really you?”

To their surprise, he actually answered them. “Yes my children. Allow me to introduce you to my master, Muramasa Sasuke.” Ryu gestured toward the man who looked like Kichiku. “Also, I would like you to meet my wife, Masamune Sakura, your mother.”

Sakura bowed. “I am honored.”

For a moment nobody moved. Hidariude had remembered Ryu’s spirit presenting himself earlier and understood that he might be seeing his father again, but to see his mother was more than he could bear. Kichiku had also never known his mother so to see her was a very emotional experience. Even Keisei who had never known family before couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

Sakura wiped a tear from Keisei’s face. “It seems my son has found as beautiful and worthy a wife for himself as his father did. I never had a chance to raise my children, but if I had a chance to have a daughter, I would be proud to have one like you. You honor the legacy of the miko of Bakeneko.”

Keisei was speechless. She had lived her entire life alone, growing up being treated like a worthless piece of meat, always wishing she had a strong mother to protect her and teach her how to be a proper woman. It was not until this very moment that she felt that she had truly beaten the odds and become a worthy woman. “I never knew my mother, but I could only hope I could have had a mother like you.”

Sasuke simply nodded to Kichiku. Somehow they all seemed validated by the appearance of the ancestral kami. “How is this possible? How are you here?”

Ryu answered. “We could not simply leave just yet, our work is not quite done. We knew you would need us so we wait here. We are in another world now, but there is overlap here in this grove of cherry trees, here we can be with you in this world and you can always come here to seek our guidance. Beyond these trees we see the world of the afterlife, and in my case, I always see where the Shinryuu Masamune is. Yes Hidariude, that means I have seen everything that has happened since you took the sword from this shrine, including what happened to Douji.”

The espers now hung their heads in shame. “We’re sorry we failed.”

“You did not fail.” Sasuke interrupted. “You fought with all of the effort that could be expected of you. You simply faced a superior enemy, one of the one hundred and eight yokai.”

The espers were confused by this statement, though they realized there were one hundred and eight soldiers in the Seventh Moon army and they were curious if there was a connection. Hidariude was the one to ask the question. “Who are the one hundred and eight yokai?”

“They are a very important part of why this shrine is so important. You see the golden dragon Shinryuu appeared here for a reason, to warn of an army of one hundred and eight yokai. His champions that he chose here were the only ones who could stop the yokai with the dragon’s power. The shrine was built as a nexus to allow the Shinryuu’s power to be passed on to Kyutsume, Bakeneko and Nyudo to be the paragons of Japan’s three warrior classes, the samurai, the ninja and the monk. In the century just before Shinryuu’s appearance, Japan was attacked by invaders from mainland Asia across the sea to the west. The invaders were defeated by awful weather attributed to the seasons. Truth be told, the storms that defeated the invaders were no mere coincidence, they were the work of the dragons of sea and sky protecting Japan. Unfortunately, this also meant that many of those who were defeated by the dragon’s efforts remained buried beneath the waves, their spirits wrought with unrest seeking yet another attempt to attack Japan again and finish their unfinished business. As it would happen, there were wicked spirits here in Japan that also sought to wreak havoc upon this land. Among them were the nine claws of Kyutsume.”

“What were the nine claws of Kyutsume?” Hidariude asked. “I thought they were my blades.”

“Yes and no.” Sasuke answered Hidariude and continued the story. “The eight smaller blades Kyutsume carried were in memory of the eight warriors he killed in battle before he lost his own arm and was forced to retire. However, despite his attempts to honor those spirits and put them to rest, they conspired against him from the afterlife. They took possession of his severed arm and saw to it that it was reattached to the armor that Kyutsume left behind when he gave up the life of a samurai. Kyutsume had taken his kote to act as a replacement arm, but he had left the rest of his suit of armor with his clan when he began to wander as a ronin. The armor had been passed down through the past few generations and became one hundred years old just as the other eight reunited the arm with the armor. This became Tuskomogami, the ninth claw and leader among the leaders of an army that would exist only to seek vengeance upon the living who had discarded them. They marched across Japan to the west coast calling every yokai promising to give them the power to do all their wicked hearts desired. By the time they reached the sea, ninety-nine yokai had joined them and using the dark arts they cast the evil spirits into the soulless corpses of the invaders. The ayakashi, the drowned ones, rose from the sea and the one hundred and eight yokai marched back across Japan, an unstoppable scourge for that which is already dead cannot be killed again. The only way for these abominations to be stopped was for the demon spirits to be extracted from their bodies. No mere mortal could do this, so Shinryuu had to imbue his champions with the power to do the impossible, to defeat an immortal army.”

Again, Hidariude was confused. “So what does this have to do with our war with Seventh Moon?”

“Everything.” Sasuke replied. “There is a reason that the kami reincarnated as you in this life. Han Toromi has disrupted the Ki of this shrine and broken the seal Shinryuu placed upon the yokai. When he had Gaki steal the Yoshiro of Kyutsume, the spirits sealed by the ancients were released. The one hundred and eight soldiers created on Seventh Moon were soulless abominations. As such they were the perfect vessels for souls without bodies and the one hundred and eight yokai took their places. The kami had to do something about this, so they claimed you three to have the power to fight the ancient war again. Douji and Hime of course are the keys, Douji is of course the Yoshiromi of Shinryuu and Hime bears the soul of one of the demons that the kami displaced during the cycle of reincarnation twenty one years ago.”

This seemed to be a lot to take in so they had to think about this. Hidariude thought a bit quicker and had more questions. “There are one hundred and eight successful genetically engineered individuals from the first generation of Seventh Moon. If the three of us displaced three of them, and Hime is one of those, then what happened to the other two?”

“That we do not know.” Sasuke answered. “We only know that your enemies are not merely genetically engineered, they are possessed by demons. You three are truly the only ones who can stop them.”

Now Hidariude turned to Ryu. “Why didn’t you tell us about this before?”

“Honestly, I did not know.” Ryu replied solemnly. “We knew the legend, but I had no idea that the demons had actually escaped. It was only recently that we were even able to determine that this was the case at all. The legend told that the kami exorcised the demons and defeated the army, but we were only holding vigil for the heroes, the truth that this vigil actually sealed the spirits was a secret lost in time. But as I told you, we are in a different world now. We can see things that could not be seen where you are. Sasuke found an anomaly as soon as he crossed over to the afterlife, but it has taken all of these years to determine just what it meant. Even as we figured it out, we didn’t bother to explain it to you because by then you seemed to already have the situation under control. But now you are here in our world and we are concerned about Douji. He is the yoshiromi of Shinryuu and a part of our family. At this time, Shinryuu is actually right here at the shrine, which means that Douji is unconscious on Seventh Moon. He is in grave trouble. The power that Han Toromi seeks is not something he will find but if he is allowed to continue his search Douji will suffer.”

“Well this has been informative, but how exactly does this help us?” Hidariude asked. “We may understand the situation better, but we still need a way to Seventh Moon to get Douji back. How can we do that? Can you help us fix the jet?”

“Actually we have been working on that. It’s hard to explain the influence we have from this side, though miracle seems to be the appropriate word. In fact, Sora should be bringing you the good news any minute now.”

Sure enough Sora was running up to them right now. Before he could get close enough to see the materialized kami, they dissipated back into petals. Sakura mouthed “I love you” and Ryu said “Fate brought you to us here, fate will bring you back together again.” With that the three espers found themselves alone again.

Sora was almost out of breath from running up the mountain as he reached his friends. “Good news guys, the jet was in better shape than I thought, we’re ready to go.”

The four went back down the mountain to the jet. Sora started to give them directions on how to operate the jet. Hidariude patiently listened until finally he said “I flew this thing to Earth once, I can get it back to Seventh Moon.”

“Are you sure?” Sora asked, suddenly a little doubtful and considering that his friend might be acting hasty.

“We have to get Douji back. Unless one of you has more firsthand experience operating a spacecraft, we don’t have time for any more preparations. We need to go and we need to go now.”

As they all boarded the jet, Hidariude had to stop Sora and Zokushou. “You have to stay here. We need to do this on our own.”

Zokushou was about to argue, but Sora stopped her. “We understand. This is way out of our league, we’d just be getting in the way. We’ll hold down the fort here. Just come back safe okay?”

“That is the idea.” Hidariude said as he closed the hatch.

Sora and Zokushou backed away a safe distance as Hidariude fired up the jet. In minutes they were headed back up into the stratosphere.

“We’re coming Douji.”