Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ The Shadow Senshi ❯ Chapter 4: Of Dreams, Hells and foreshadowing ( Chapter 4 )

Disclaimer: Well, this chapter goes back and forth between the Shadow Senshi and Kuai Bo. I'm not sure yet how much of each, I tend to never know what comes out until it's already out.

 

The Bishoujo Sailor Senshi are the propriety of a person with much more money than I. Kuai Bo, The Shadow Senshi, Kuai Bo's troops, colleagues and other related creature from beyond are mostly my own although you might spot a few inspirations left and right.

 

I plan to cross this over with anything I think I can get away with. Everything not mine is propriety of whomever owns them at present. If you see any mistakes, I'd love to hear about them. You can get me at Gabriel.Pelletier@Sogetel.net

 

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The Shadow Senshi

Chapter 4

By The Hunterminator

 

Blood. Blood everywhere. Rivers of blood, lakes of blood, blood flowing over caked blood. Kuai Bo could only look in muted horror at what was left of his people, bloody corpses all over the village. That's when he noticed that he, too, was completely covered in blood.

 

With a nauseous gasp, he attempted to wipe it off with his hand, only spreading the blood more evenly. As he started using his other hand, he noticed that he was holding something. He looked down and saw a bloody scythe. And Kuai Bo had the visceral feeling that the scythe was the cause of all the blood.

 

But if the scythe he was holding was the cause, then so was he. With a sharp intake of breath, he dropped the scythe, sending blood flying everywhere. That was the last straw as, with a panicked yell, he turned in a direction, any direction and ran. But as he ran, the blood flowed after him, following him everywhere. And when a corpse was getting too far, it would stand up and run after him.

 

Quickly, he was running with a village's worth of animated corpses running after him in a sick parody of human movements. Suddenly, he tripped, sending blood flying everywhere. As he rolled on his back, coughing blood out of his lungs, he saw what had tripped him. It was a large vaguely human shaped shadow.

 

It had 2 large horns that ran behind it to as low as its hips and large wings of shadow draped over it's shoulders like a cape. It seemed to be wearing a crown of gold, with small threads of gold running all over its body, weaving unpleasant shapes and runes all over its body. It raised its hands that held a large battle axe and with a roar, it swung at Kuai Bo.

 

***

 

Kuai Bo woke up in sweat. Why did he have to get that dream again? Maybe talking about his awakening hadn't been such a good idea. As his throat started to get sore, Kuai Bo noticed that he had been yelling non stop for the last few minutes in an impressive feat of lung capacity that only nineteen centuries of almost constant training/fighting could give and promptly stopped.

 

That's when Rei ran out, wildly looking around. She had just awoken from a very disturbing dream/vision and had been trying to decipher it when she had heard the yell to end all yelling. Finally, she pinpointed the cause of the yelling and yelled an inquiry as to why he had done that. Kuai Bo shrugged in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner, "Oh, I was just feeling bored so I decided to try to wake up the whole city."

 

Rei looked at him in astonishment before sniffing indignantly and going back inside. As she made her usual morning rituals, she attempted to make some sense of what she had seen during the night. The shadow near the end was particularly worrying. It exuded an aura of malevolence that set her on edge just from remembering it.

 

Of course, the astute might wonder how two separate beings could have dreamt the same thing, and the cause is simply a combination of factors. Kuai Bo is a demon, a being of the astral plane which explains why it is possible for him to leave the mortal plane through death and come back with practiced ease. Rei is a priestess with a trained connection to the astral plane.

 

They both slept in a temple, a place that served as a connection between the mortal and astral planes and, upon those same temple grounds, Kuai Bo declared that he would protect Rei. Rei's connection to the temple was thus also partly extended to Kuai Bo which all means that, when both of their defences were down during sleep, all those factors made that Rei received Kuai Bo's nightmare through the quasi connection they shared. They didn't know that though, and really couldn't.

 

Later that morning, at a more bearable time, Rei came back outside and saw something black hanging from the tree in which Kuai Bo had slept and as she looked up, she saw hairs. Lots and lots of hair. Kuai Bo was in the middle of a complex ritual of hair care that took a few hours from every one of his mornings and, now that his hair hung free, Rei was treated to the sight of close to two millennia's worth of hair being taken care of with a rare amount of care and gentleness.

 

Somehow, she knew that there was something important about his hair but could not even begin to fathom what it could be. Since she had woken much earlier than usual, she had a lot more time than usual before she had to go to school so she simply sat on the porch for a while, a cup of strong tea to wake her up and, as she saw how much of Kuai Bo's concentration was taken, she wondered how long it would take for him to notice her.

 

It took forty-five minutes, the time it took him to get done, before he saw her. His reaction? He simply commented on the time. Rei with an eep, the priestess rushed to get ready for school. The Bellumbra simply stayed in the tree, chuckling at the young mortal's hurry.

 

As she ran out the temple, he quickly begun jumping from a rooftop to another to keep up, quickly bringing his sharp senses to overtime as she left the protective environment of the temple.

 

***During that time, in a completely unrelated universe***

 

Hatsuyo collapsed from exhaustion besides her fellow senshi, her lungs feeling as if they were on fire. Trainer was a slave driver when it came to his duty and the Shadow Senshi were beginning to regret fighting hordes of monsters. They hadn't even had time to rest since their earlier deaths; instead, Servant had brought them to his master's estate where they were shown around the house.

 

It was rather large and held many incongruities that were simply not found in mortal homes. The kitchen, for example, literally came alive when Kimie expressed a desire for food, knives flying, pans and ovens clanking, and, in the end, supplying her with a well made meal in record time. Brooms walked around. Lamps lit and extinguished themselves.

 

The view from their rooms showed a large lake of fire with the shapes of a few damned souls floating around. Sometimes, Servant would roar orders to various appliances as their performances didn't satisfy him. Finally, they met trainer. He was obviously not human, with a wild mane of blue hair, a scaly skin, eyes that looked like flames and a large bullwhip in his bear like hands.

 

He wasn't afraid to use it either. When one of the senshi's performances failed to satisfy him, he would swing at them with it, though never hitting. But the whip was magical as they felt pain even when it merely brushed them. Hatsuyo quickly learnt that she was not that good at unharmed combat when she spared against the youma and was thoroughly crushed by him.

 

But they also knew that it worked as they felt their skill and power going up at never before seen rates. After only a few hours, they were already powerful enough to crush the Demon King in a one on one fight.

 

That was when they met warrior. He was the less human looking youma they had seen amongst Kuai Bo's forces. He stood two meters tall with long metallic arms, the left ending in a huge hand while the other ended with oversized claws. He had red fur spreading across his body, going from his head to everywhere on his back including the back of his legs and his metallic arms and hands.

 

They saw him fight with Trainer and they were quite rightfully impressed. He was quick, but had an amount of power that only hitting people with a fist of solid steel could give. Then, Trainer resumed their training, making them wish they were still alive so they could just die and be done with it.

 

Finally, the crazy slave driver dragged them to their respective rooms and threw them on their beds where they promptly fell asleep. When they woke up, they'd find a fridge walking around their room with an assortment of foods in it.

 

***During that time, back in the first universe***

 

Kuai Bo felt bored again. He was now hidden on the roof of a house across the street from Rei's school while he waited for something to happen. He almost wished something would happen, but he knew that one should always watch what one wished for, for one might actually get it.

 

In the school, Rei cringed. She could sense where the demon was hidden and it was not such a good hiding spot, she could see him from he classroom.

 

In another school, the other inner senshi were deep in thoughts. Not in the thoughts one might imagine though. Amy was studiously listening to her teacher, Makoto and Minako were thinking about boys, and Usagi was sleeping, dreaming about various things from ice cream to her Mamo-chan and a few involving both that had her blushing and giggling which attracted her teacher's attention which resulted in her standing in the hall.

 

***Somewhere else***

 

The sound of steel echoed across the dark cave as what looked like a man wrapped in steel marched across it, finally stopping before a large throne made of overgrown plants. The being seated upon this throne raised a hand and a monster stepped out of the shadows to stand in front of the 'man': "Here is the Puaccarumbra as requested. Unbeatable at long range by most magic. His weaknesses are physical combat and shadow magic."

 

The 'man' nodded: "Good, the Sailor Senshi should be totally defenceless against him. Barring any unknown's, we should have killed them all by the end of the month." With those words, he took the Puaccarumbra's hand with his own and led him away to get ready to send him.

 

As he walked into his laboratory, one of his aides walked up to him. "Sir, we need only a few more manna shards and we will be ready to create a few manna crystals."

 

The 'Man' smirked: "Good, ready the drones, I believe it is time to go shopping."

 

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Author Notes: Another chapter done. I'm slowly but surely uncovering new things about my characters.

 

Version 1.2: Mostly Formatting, by this point in my writing, I knew what I wanted so I don't need to change anything.