7th Moon

Hidariude was holding his stance with his sword up and his eyes closed. He was waiting for an attack, but did not want to detect it in the traditional ways, not by seeing or even hearing, but by feeling it with his sixth sense. It wasn’t the first time he had done this, but he knew it would work. He also knew that his attacker knew and was feeling him out the same way, it was a matter of who was better, if she could beat his senses and reflexes. When the attack came, he parried with his sword just in time, blocking Keisei’s fans. She somersaulted over his head to attack him from the other side. He quickly turned around to continue the duel. As he turned to block her fans, he found that Keisei was simply holding still. He knew immediately what was going on and in one movement he turned to look behind him to see the paper bomb she had left and jumped out of the way as Keisei said “Kayakujutsu detonate!”

“Stupid, I should have seen that.” Hidariude scolded himself as he watched the explosion.

He didn’t have long to think about his mistake as another assailant came from his other side. He blocked Kichiku’s fist with the flat of his blade just in time. Keisei gave no quarter as she continued her attack and Hidariude had to block with his cyber blades, using his long blade to parry one fan and then twisting his claws to push the other out of the way. Hidariude then brought his cyber blade to cross with his sword and unleashed an electric attack on Kichiku. Kichiku started his jump as Hidariude’s attention returned to him and just barely dodged as lightning struck the spot he stood on only a second before. As he landed from the jump, he punched the ground, causing a tremor that split the ground. Hidariude jumped out of the way before the splitting ground caused him to lose his balance, but Keisei wasn’t quite so lucky. She didn’t dodge by jumping, but still had the grace to perform a split, maintaining balance on either side of the fissure. She drew another scroll and threw a fireball at Kichiku. Rather than dodging, he blocked the attack with his bare hands.

“Show off!” both of his sparring partners said to him in unison. They shared a laugh before resuming sparring.

Ryu watched from a safe distance and smiled. He left them to their sparring and walked off toward the cherry trees.

He sat between the cherry trees and spoke to them, speaking really to the spirits they represented to him, Sakura and Sasuke. “It took me twenty years, but I made good on my promise to bring back new recruits for the shrine. And not just any recruits, our children and the chosen ones as well. Oh if only you could see them, their power is awesome. Less than three years I have been training them and already they surpass all of us in martial arts. Even more impressive, they have indeed awakened as espers. Not only do they have extrasensory perception, they each have discovered other abilities as well. Hidariude can use electrokinesis to manipulate the electricity he can produce naturally, though he only seems to be able to channel it properly through blades; fortunately he has plenty of those. Keisei has pyrokinesis, and she has mastered kayakujutsu, she can delay the burning of a paper bomb and can bend the flames to her will, making the tiniest spark into a great conflagration. Kichiku has geokinesis and can crack the earth and close it just as easily as if he was molding clay. But I believe the one with the greatest potential is little Douji, though I don’t think he realizes it yet.”

Ryu was interrupted when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned around to see a familiar face. “Oh Hidariude, I didn’t know you followed me out here.” Those were the last words Ryu spoke as a cyber-blade went through his chest and pierced his heart.

Douji was chasing rabbits outside the shrine grounds as usual. Today his chase had led him to a field of wildflowers. What was unique about this time was finding a girl about his age among the flowers. It had been a full three years since he had come to the Shrine of the Golden Dragon and in that whole time, he had not seen another child. There had been other children in the village, but as far as he knew, they had all died during the raid, and this girl did not look at all like any of the girls from the village, so she was most certainly not a long lost survivor. She had blond hair that was tied into pigtails and was wearing a blue dress with a white kerchief tied around her neck and shiny black shoes with buckles on her feet. This was an unusual look he had never seen before, but at the same time, he found he was overcome with joy at the sight of another child.

She saw the rabbit he was chasing and grabbed it. “Oh what a cute little bunny! Is he yours?” she asked him.

“No,” Douji answered, “I’m just chasing him away from our vegetable garden. Sometimes I get carried away.”

“I’ll say, you’re really far out here.”

“Not for me, I live around here. And you’re one to talk, I didn’t know there was anybody anywhere around here. Who are you?”

“My name is Hime!” the girl answered cheerfully, “What’s yours?”

“I’m Douji, what are you doing out here?”

“I’m just having a day out with my friends.” She stopped to look around. “Oh my, where did they go? Will you help me find them?” Without even waiting for an answer, Hime grabbed Douji by the hand and dragged him off.

Hidariude, Keisei, and Kichiku came to a three-way draw in their sparring match, Hidariude was blocking Keisei’s fan with his sword while striking Kichiku with his cyber blade, Kichiku was holding Hidariude’s cyber blade with one hand and punching Keisei with the other, and Keisei was blocking Kichiku’s attack while striking Hidariude and closing the loop. It was right at this moment while they were struggling to break each other’s guard while at the same time struggling not to be the first to give in, that they all felt a sudden void form on the peripheral of their senses. They all turned and looked beyond the fields toward the cherry trees. They didn’t even need to speak, they each knew what the other was thinking and broke their stalemate to run and check on the scene, all hoping that they were wrong.

Sadly, they were all right, their senses had not failed them, Ryu’s body was lying on the ground in a pool of blood. Hidariude sprang forward and held his master. “Ryu! Please, master, speak to me! Don’t die!”

For just one second, Ryu got to see the three of them as they approached. He wanted to tell them how much he loved them, how proud he was of them, just one last time let them know how proud he was that they inherited his legacy. But this would not be, his body was giving out and he did not have the chance to say goodbye. His very last thought was reuniting with Sakura in the afterlife.

Hidariude’s words fell upon the unhearing ears of the dead body of the man he regarded as a father without ever knowing the truth of that sentiment. Keisei joined Hidariude, and thought about everything Ryu had done for her and that there was nothing she could do now that he really needed her. Kichiku joined them as well, solemnly saying the unfortunate truth which all refused to face, “He’s gone.”

This solemn moment was broken by another familiar voice. “Long time no see guys.”

The three mourners turned around to see three figures, one a bunny girl with blonde hair, bunny ears, a puffball tail and white fur covering her breasts and pelvis much like Keisei, and another a relatively scrawny uniformed soldier, the third a shadow behind the other two. Keisei recognized one, and her friends recognized the other. They exclaimed in unison “Baz! Aka! What are you doing here?”

Aka answered them, “We’re looking for traitors, and I think we found them.”

The espers took their fighting stances with weapons drawn and fists up. Hidariude spoke for them, “You’re not taking us back!”

Aka gave them a quizzical look, and then laughed. “We’re not here to take you back.”

“We’re here to replace you.” said a voice that sounded identical to Hidariude. To the surprise of the espers, the shadow stepped forward and revealed himself to look exactly like Hidariude.

“What the hell?” Hidariude exclaimed.

“Meet Seichei, your upgrade.” Aka answered. “More blades, less betrayal. You see we don’t need you, we can just make more.”

As Seichei extended the cyber blades in his left arm, Hidariude realized the truth. “You killed Ryu! You’ll pay for that!” The two doppelgangers attacked each other, Hidariude’s sword against Seichei’s cyber blade.

Keisei and Kichiku came to Hidariude’s assistance, thankful Hidariude was still holding the sword as it was the only thing that could differentiate him from his opponent. However, before they could connect, they were intercepted by Baz and Aka respectively, who pushed them away from the battle that had already started.

Kichiku was forced to fight Aka at one corner of the cherry grove, where Aka literally ran circles around him. Kichiku was trying to fight back, but Aka was just too fast. “You may be strong, but you can’t hit what you can’t catch and you can’t catch what you can’t see!” Aka taunted.

Kichiku thought back to his training with Ryu, to the exercise tracking the fly. He closed his eyes and allowed his sixth sense to find Aka, not where he was, but where he was going to be. He took a few more hits from his streaking foe, but each hit only made him more certain of his opponent’s location. Once he had a good trace on Aka, Kichiku punched the ground creating a fissure that tripped Aka and sent him flying in Kichiku’s direction. Kichiku perfectly timed a palm strike into Aka’s solar plexus and thrust him into the trunk of the nearest tree, hitting so hard, that the whole tree shook and bark broke off around Aka and left an imprint. Aka collapsed on the ground in a crumpled heap.

Meanwhile, Keisei and Baz fought on the other side of the grove. Baz tried to tear off Keisei’s clothes while Keisei batted at her with her fans. She had some good angles on Baz and kept her off, giving her some good paper cuts at least. Baz was a lot fiercer than Keisei had remembered. Keisei had always been the only girl with attitude. She remembered a few girls that had some edge, though only because it was what their masters had wanted, and Baz was not one of them. The two of them had been in Han’s service for a while, and Han liked submission from his girls, which is why Keisei hadn’t held that position for very long as she didn’t like to submit. But Baz was the complete opposite, she just wanted to please her master and never fought back, which made her the perfect replacement for Keisei, as she would always be more loyal and could never be swayed to leave Seventh Moon. That still didn’t explain why she had become a fighter, unless she had resolved this as just another way to serve her master.

Baz gave up on deflecting the fans and managed to disarm Keisei by getting them out of her hands entirely. Baz then resumed wrestling with Keisei, trying to throw her against the tree. “Why did you have to run away?” Baz asked while pinning Keisei’s arms down, “If you had just been a good girl we could have stayed together on Seventh Moon and we wouldn’t have to fight now.”

“I’m not a good girl and I didn’t want to stay there. I didn’t belong there, I belong here.”

“It’s too bad, Han would love to see us like this, if I could take you back, I’m sure I could go back to my cushy job at Han’s side.”

“Not my problem!” Keisei said while head-butting Baz which got her to back off. Baz stumbled back and put her hand to her head and felt paper stuck to her hand. She looked at her other hand and found another slip of paper on that one too. Keisei had managed to stick paper bombs to Baz’s hands during the struggle. Keisei threw another one at Baz’s stomach. “Kayakujutsu detonate!” The paper bombs went off burning Baz’s hands. “I’m not going back, and neither are you.”

Hidariude was still fighting Seichei, the doppelganger keeping up very well with one blade. Hidariude assumed Seichei was an exact copy and extended his cyber blades to try to attack while keeping Seichei’s blade blocked with his sword. Hidariude was quite surprised to find Seichei blocking with a cyber-blade from the other arm. “More blades.” Hidariude echoed Aka’s statement from earlier. They continued to duel, not that it threw Hidariude off that much. He was used to fighting two people that could handle both of his blades at once, so one fighter with two blades was nothing. What concerned him was that if he didn’t end this soon, someone else would die. Hidariude pulled back and charged up an electric attack to unleash on Seichei. It connected, but it didn’t do much, Seichei was still standing.

“Okay that just pissed me off!” Seichei screamed back. He looked to the corners of the grove, seeing his comrades down and Kichiku and Keisei were coming to Hidariude’s aid. “Let’s finish this!” Seichei extended all of his blades while somehow retracting his skin. He appeared to double in size, tearing off the clothes he was wearing in the process. The espers now looked upon bladed death, and they knew it would take everything they had to stop this unstoppable monster.

Kichiku came in carefully, using two fingered strikes to try to hit the robot between his blades. Normally, Kichiku’s strength was enough that even these small blows would be very damaging, but this robot was made of titanium and was quite sturdy, so it took more than Kichiku thought. He kept poking Seichei, trying to find a weak point while also trying to put in more force so he could do more damage all while deflecting Seichei’s own slices. Hidariude continued to try to duel with Seichei around Kichiku. To an onlooker this would have appeared dangerous, but Hidariude and Kichiku had perfect synchronicity, not only were they used to each other, but with their psychic bond they could read each other’s thoughts and fight as if they were one person with four hands.

Keisei also joined the fight with her fans back in her hands. The fans were getting torn by Seichei’s blades, but Keisei was still able to make every blow count by deflecting slashes in a subtle yet effective fashion. If Seichei had been programmed to laugh, he would have, so confident in his ability to fight these three. After a few rounds of fighting though, everybody pulled away.

“Giving up already?” Seichei taunted, “I was just starting to have fun!”

Keisei put up one hand with two fingers, “Kayakujutsu,” Keisei began. For a second between her breaths, Seichei was able to look himself over and notice that every almost every blade on his body, save only those on his forearms mirroring Hidariude’s, were adorned with paper bombs. After this brief second of horror for Seichei, Keisei completed her incantation, “Detonate!”

Seichei was consumed in a fiery explosion. Each of the blades that had been marked had been weakened ever so slightly by every carefully placed strike in the four way battle, and Keisei had perfectly burned each one off at the precise melting point of titanium, just enough to level the playing field between him and Hidariude as now he only had the nine blades in each arm mirroring his. However, the sheer force of the explosion was more than Seichei’s body could take and he collapsed.

Seeing their foes fallen, Hidariude, Keisei and Kichiku took a deep breath. Slowly, they returned to Ryu’s body. They just stood there, looking at him. Truth be told, they really had no idea what to do. Hidariude and Kichiku had been around dead bodies before, but not people they knew and cared about, and either way, they hadn’t stayed around to find out what happened next. Even if they knew what to do, they couldn’t bring themselves to do anything at all. They just stared and cried.

Hime was still dragging Douji by the hand when they came upon the somber scene. Hime shrieked, “What happened to my friends?” Hime jumped on Seichei, trying to reactivate the robot. “Where are Baz and Aka?” She looked over at the corners of the grove and saw them lying on the ground. “Who did this? Was it you, you big meanies?” she said accusing Hidariude, Keisei and Kichiku.

“What are you talking about Hime?” Douji asked.

“These were my friends, Seichei, Baz and Aka, but now they’re all hurt.” Hime answered. She quickly ran over to Baz and put her hands on her wounds. There was a dim glow coming from Hime’s hands and Baz stood up. Hime ran over to Aka and did the same to him. “Now you aren’t going to take this lying down are you? You show them how tough we really are!”

The espers realized they needed to be ready for battle again, took their stances and engaged Baz and Aka again. As they did, they revealed Ryu’s body still lying on the ground. Douji ran over to Ryu and held him. “Sifu! NO!” His friends may not have known what to do in this situation, but Douji was all too familiar. Suddenly that day three years ago came back to him. He had been in shock at the time and went straight from shock to living with Kichiku and Ryu, he had never processed it. In some way, he had just forgotten about death. But now, the sight of one he loved, fatally wounded and lying in blood, it took him right back to that horror of the massacre of his village. Burning buildings, everyone he knew and loved lying dead around him. He felt his world falling apart and great despair as he was left all alone, then Kichiku came out of the chaos to protect him. He looked around now seeing the only three people he had left fighting for their lives to protect him, including Kichiku, this stranger who had taken him on as his own, and once again the worst part was that he was still so small and powerless to do anything about it. He saw Kichiku and thought of his mother, something deep inside him stirred, “No, no one else will die, I will not lose any more friends today!”

Douji’s body began to glow bright yellow. The glow grew and changed shape, forming into something else. His three friends could not believe their eyes as they gazed upon the divine spirit possessing the small boy. It grew long and huge, with four legs each ending in three claws as long as Kichiku was tall. The head towered above the trees, the face looked like an alligator with two deer-like antlers, each with three branches, the middle branch forking three times, and the branch on the end forking five times. Indeed, as the behemoth roared, there was no doubt, it looked just like the statue in the shrine only larger, and Douji had become Shinryuu, the Golden Dragon.

Shinryuu grabbed Baz and Aka, one in each hand, and squeezed them tight, crushing their bones, and then slammed them together in midair and dropped them from above the trees and they landed with a deep thud as they formed a crater in the middle of the grove. The dragon roared again.

Hime watched all of this with a bizarre gaze. Her eyes began to glow, and then the glow spread across her body and began to expand until she also appeared to be a dragon looking just like Shinryuu only a deep purple hue instead of golden. She roared and attacked the golden dragon. As the dark dragon tried to bite the golden dragon, the golden dragon bit back. They recoiled and then bit each other again. They went back and forth a few times before they were driven to enough to hold their bites and grapple. Once they realized they weren’t getting anywhere, they released their bites while still locking claws. They reared back their heads and unleashed fiery blasts at each other. Again, this test of strength seemed as futile as those before, the fires meeting in center and holding firm with no give either way, a draconic tug of war.

As this was going on, Kichiku realized there was only one way to stop this madness. “We need to get the shimenawa from the shrine.” His friends followed him to the shrine to help him open it. Once they got there they opened the door together and Kichiku entered the shrine to collect the rope from the neck of the statue. He then ran back to the dueling dragons who were now thrashing in the rice paddies. Kichiku leapt upon the back of the golden dragon and threw the rope across the dragon’s throat and just barely managed to grab the other end with his other hand, arms now encircling the dragon’s neck rather tightly. He now chanted a sacred mantra, “Om Mani Padme Om!”

The dragon started to writhe in pain, but not enough to stop. The golden dragon continued to fight with the dark dragon, blasting each other with fiery breath again. This time as the blasts pushed against each other, Hidariude and Keisei realized they needed to help Kichiku and chanted with him, all three repeating in unison “Om Mani Padme Om!” As they chanted, the blast from the golden dragon actually appeared to get stronger, pushing the dark dragon’s breath farther and farther back until it finally pushed all the way back into the dark dragon’s mouth. In an explosion of light, the aura of the dark dragon receded, leaving Hime falling from the air down into the rice paddy. Still the espers work was not done, they needed to do something about Douji. As they continued to chant they prayed for Douji to come back to them. With a final roar, the aura of the golden dragon receded, leaving Douji with the shimenawa around his neck, his body now limp with exhaustion in Kichiku’s arms.

“Who knew such a small body could contain such enormous power?” Hidariude remarked.

Douji’s eyes opened after a moment. “What happened? Where’s Ryu?” The others were surprised for a moment, and then they realized, Douji was still young and untrained, he couldn’t control this power and was completely unaware of what the dragon had done while it possessed him.

Kichiku carried Douji back to the shrine while Hidariude and Keisei went to get Ryu’s body. They knew nothing of burial ceremony, so they improvised. They placed Ryu’s body in the arms of the statue of the Golden Dragon, the same way the sword had been oriented when Ryu first opened the shrine for them. “Master Ryu, teacher, father, you served us well and made us proud, we can only hope you felt the same about us. Now may your soul rest with the kami in the hereafter.”

They sat in silent meditation remembering everything he had done for them. They remembered how they had all been brought together here, how he had made them better people. Masamune Ryu had made them more than just a cyborg, a cat girl, a brute, and a boy, cast together by a twist of fate, he had made them a family. He had not only taught them how to fight but gave them something to fight for.

When they had finished mourning Ryu, Hidariude broke the silence. “We cannot stay here. Seventh Moon will find us again. We must go, and we must find out who else is being hurt and bring this to an end once and for all.”

The others simply nodded. They stepped outside and closed the door to the shrine, together performing the rite of sealing. “Until our spirits are gathered at this shrine again, may this door remain unopened and this seal remain unbroken.”

With that, the four espers, Hidariude, Keisei, Kichiku and Douji left the only true home they had ever known and began their journey into the unknown reaches of Japan.