Ronin Warriors Fan Fiction ❯ Ronin Warriors: Hell Back on Earth ❯ The Four Appear ( Chapter 4 )

Although things were going well over in America, things were not so well in Japan. Particularly with a group of warriors, forced to relocate.

The Draconai had lost the first round. Now they were gearing up for round two, only problem is, they still had not managed to find a place to set up shop. Ceiphied was furious at this. How was he to carry out his plan with an inability to find a place to base his operations from? They had managed to find hiding place after hiding place, only to be forced to change their location soon after.

"I CANNOT BELIEVE WE LOST TO THOSE WEAKLINGS!!!!" Ceiphied roared, sending shivers down the spines of his minions.
"Master, they were stronger than we anticipated. Surely if given another opportunity to fight them we will succeed." Kouen declared.
"I do not know if we will get that chance. Right now, we must plan our attack and locate the Drakka Shichisei before Amaterasu does." Ceiphied said. "That is the only way that we will win!"
"Master, perhaps we should contact that group that gave us the new magic. I believe they were called Otoantou Industries. Perhaps they would know where the Seishi are." Koureha suggested.
"Otoantou...This might give us the edge we require...we shall go and see this Otouantou and convince him to aid us further!" Ceiphied shouted, rising into the air, with his army following behind.

Sometime later...

"Sir, we've got something incoming." the commander of Houji's forces said.
"What?" Houji asked.
"It appears to be scaled humanoids, accompanied by a large dragon." he reported.
"The Draconai...they must be back for more weaponry...I thought they'd return. Hold them off until I tell you to cease fire."
"But sir, shouldn't we destroy them?" the commander asked.
"No. At least, not yet. I have orders from a higher authority to leave them alive for some time. Send out the troops."

The commander saluted and declared that he would.

Alarms sounded throughout the facility, as soldiers ran down stairs, grabbed rifles off racks, ran and climbed into tanks, and a large crew headed over to their secret weapon, just in case. Houji sat in his office, overlooking the whole thing.

Still in the air, the Draconai swooped in towards the facility.

"There appears to be some commotion below. Shall we cancel the attack?" Kouen asked.
"NO...We must strike now and fast! ATTACK!!!!!" Ceiphied roared, taking a deep breath and exhaling a flurry of rocks, ice, fire, poison, and lightning that lashed out, cutting through the first line of troops and damaging many of the tanks.

"Open fire!" the commander shouted.

Troops aimed their guns skyward and began firing on Ceiphied, but he pushed their guns down.

"Mr. Otoantou's orders are not to harm the large dragon. All the others are fair game."
"CHARGE! CHARGE!!!! LAND AND ATTACK!!!" Ceiphied roared, taking a vantage point above the base as the others began to swoop in.
"ISHIBIYA!!!" Kouen shouted out, as the elite members of the Ishibiya Corps readied their cannons, aiming them at the armored division. At Kouen's command, they fired a barrage of energy cannonballs at the tanks, damaging them heavily. He shouted it out again, and they fired again and again, allowing many of the grunts to land and retract their wings. Ground troops advanced forward, firing their rifles, which only managed to graze the grunts who took down soldier after soldier by impaling them with their claws.

"FALL BACK!!!" the commander shouted, realizing this was not going to work. "Bring forward the armored divisions!"

The troops, what remained of them, retreated as the armored units moved forward and proceeded to open fire. Their powerful cannons were more than a match for the Draconai, blasting several of them into oblivion. The soldiers cheered as Draconai after Draconai was blown away.

"Get out of their cannons' range!" Kouen ordered his warriors. "Prepare for a Kikou Ha Barrage!"

Bringing their hands back together to gather energy, they thrust them forward, sending waves of destructive ki energy slamming into the enemy. Troops were vaporized as the beam came into contact with them, the tanks tried to relocate, but many were vaporized as well.

"BRING IT OUT!!! BRING OUT THE MAMMOTH!!!!!" the commander ordered.

The thunderous stomps were heard as the gargantuan machine exited its holding bay, making mincemeat out of the Draconai with its powerful railguns. Many took to the air for a more opportune advantage, but the missile turrets tore through even more, and what escaped their reach were wasted by the antipersonell cannons on its underbelly. The creatures swarmed around it like flies, trying to damage its thick armor with their ki blasts, but they only barely penetrated the shell, if not at all.

"ASSUME YOUR DRAGON FORMS!!!! IT IS OUR ONLY CHANCE!!!!" Ceiphied roared.

The Draconai began to focus their power and started to glow. Houji watched intently. This must be their true power, he thought. However, his orders were not to destroy them. His master had plans for the misguided former minons of Drakka.

He pushed a button on his desk, and activated an intercomm.

"Stand down." he ordered.
"Yes sir." The commander replied.

With that being said, Houji's forces stopped their defensive assault. The Draconai proceeded to stop their onslaught as well.

"Welcome to my facilities, Draconai." Houji said over his loudspeaker.
"You know of us?" Ceiphied asked.
"Of course. It was I who authorized the shipment of supplies to your former location."
"I demand only one thing of you now. Where are the Drakka Shichisei?!" Ceiphied roared, terrifying everyone.
"I do not know."
"HOW DARE YOU..." Ceiphied said, preparing to resume their attack, and stomp the facility flat.
"However, I happen to know through my sources that one of them may be in Boston, in the United States." he answered.
"Then we shall go and investigate." Ceiphied said.

Ceiphied's forces summoned their wings, and rose into the air once again, flying off to their temporary home. Houji smiled evily. They had come, as Tenma had said. It was just a matter of getting rid of them now and using them to their advantage.

Meanwhile...

As usual, it was a wonderful, beautiful sunny day on Boston's Esplanade. The light from the sun reflected off the water around the area, a gentle breeze blew by through the trees. People were sitting under trees or on benches reading, as bicyclists and skaters flew by, while joggers and walkers headed by at their own pace. People were holding picnics on the grass, or lying down to take a nap or to sunbathe. All this was observed from the high powered sniper scope of Kinuko Sogekihei, scanning the area for anyone who could possibly come to find the target they were sworn to protect by Tenma.

She wondered why she had agreed to this mission; simple, it paid well. Why someone would pay so much just to protect his daughter perplexed her. Usually her missions went along the lines of "kill so and so, on such and such a date, at such and such a time". But this one was different. Nor could she figure out why Otoantou had insisted on her and Xiaoyu work with the other two, when they had completed countless missions without needing any help. This was strange. Between Xiaoyu's skill with a Chinese sword and her own incredible aim, they were unbeatable. Yet they had been instructed to go with these two respresentitives from his own group. Hopefully these two men were as good as she hoped they were.

"Mr. Kakekomi, any sign of anything?" Kinuko asked.
"Negative." he replied back through his headset. "Touru, anything on your end?"
"Nothing. Everything seems to be quiet here."
"Kinuko, keep an eye on her if you can. We're getting nothing so far."

Slightly satified, Kinuko went back to her spying from within one of the trees.

Teresa sat quietly under a tree in the shade, reading a book. She loved to read. Besides, on a day like today, it was too nice to be stuck indoors. She waved to Allison as she zipped by on her skates, and then turned back to her book. She glanced over to check on her other friend, and sure enough, as she expected, had once again fallen asleep while listening to her CD player. She smiled to herself. Silly Karen. Always trying to let the music take her to the story, and always ending up falling asleep instead of going into a trance. She yawned, and stretched out on her back, placing her book over her face, deciding that a short nap would not hurt.

Meanwhile, a group of three approached from a distance. Ran walked along next to the hand-grasped Yuriko and Navcase, with her skates slung over her shoulder, eager to see if this place was as good as she had heard. Yuriko gazed into Navcase's eyes as they walked along, hand in hand, ready to enjoy what little time they had for lesiure. Navcase gazed over at the trees in the distance. They were not as tall as some of the trees from his childhood, but still, their minds drifted into a daydream of when he and Yuriko were little...

A few weeks after Navcase had moved in with Yuriko's family, she was not as thrilled about her new surrogate brother as her parents were. She was far angrier at the fact that her father insisted that this boy, a year older than her, protect her. She could take care of herself. She did not this little samurai-in-training to watch over her. Still, he was kinda cute, so she would try and play hard to get...except, as we all know, with Yuriko, "hard to get" means, hard to get her off of you. There were many tall trees around the Toumahama property, and Yuriko loved to climb them. Usual young girl activities were not up her alley, and consisted of boring games with the local girls. Boys had more fun.

Yuriko's small body reached up and pulled with all her might up the trunk of a tree. She smiled in glee, both because loved climbing, and because she had managed to loose the eager and overprotecting emissary of her father, namely Navcase. As she reached for the next branch and pulled herself up, she groaned at the next sound she heard.

"Yuriko! Please come down from there! I'll get in trouble if your father catches you up there!" a six-year-old Navcase called up to her.
"Don't worry Shinta-chan!..." Yuriko called back as she reached up to grab the next branch and pull herself up, "I'm not gonna...FAAAAAAAAAALL!!"

As Yuriko put her weight on her foot to give her the leverage to pull herself up, the branch snapped with a sharp crack, causing her to loose her grip and plummet to the ground. Using the mildly sub-god speed of a Hiten Mitsurugi Master in training, Navcase rushed towards the falling Yuriko and caught her, her own weight knocking him on to his back as she fell into his arms.

"Shinta-chan! You caught me! That means you love me!" Yuriko exclaimed, her usual happiness kicking in.
"Yuriko, please don't call me that..." he started to say before Yuriko got her famed death grip around him. "Yuri...ko...need...air..." he wheezed as she smothered him in her love.

The two smiled at each other as they came back to reality. The two of them had spent some great time together. Yuriko had plenty of happy memories of cuddling her Shinta-chan, and Navcase had several painful memories of Yuriko practically suffocating him. There were so many times that she had almost gotten him in trouble when they were very little. She was rebelious, not content to sit around and be a girl like other females he knew. He cited countless times when noticed that his hakama or other items of masculinity were missing and he would later find that Yuriko had stolen them. He had always wondered if her father knew of her infatuation with him, and that was why he charged him with the task of looking after her. He never found out; her father disowned him after Ceiphied captured her. Eventually, much to his relief, she had mostly grown out of her tomboy phase as she took to making herself more beautiful with makeup and perfume, obviously with the intention of getting him to notice her as a beautiful young girl, and not just as this adoptive sister or servant of her father. It worked, though it took a little time. Navcase's mind wandered again, as he remembered what he thought to be the first time he had realized he loved her...or at least thought she was beautiful.

He had just come back from a training session with Hiko the 4th, and was eager to find Yuriko. He was fourteen at the time, she had just turned thirteen. Although she had mostly grown out of her tomboyishness, she still liked to climb trees. There was one tree in particular that was right outside the storehouse, that if you climbed it you could go right on top of the roof. Yuriko used to say that it was her quiet place. She would always go there if she was mad at him, or her parents. She especially hated it when he had to go off and train with Hiko. His best guess is that she would be there. Heading over to the tree, he spotted her on the roof. Grabbing onto one of the branches, he pulled himself up branch by branch, until his head was just about at the roof of the building.

"Yuriko! I'm back!" he called out softly, hoping that she would not notice and tackle him out of the tree.

But no response came. No stampede. No "Yuriko Flying Tackle". She must have been really mad at him. It was not his fault that Hiko made him train all the time, far away from her. He had watched Suiren play 'Legend of Dragoon', and remembered a line just before the end of Disc 2, that "Distance only makes Love grow Stronger." This was especially true of Yuriko. Yet no answer.

"Yuriko, I'm sorry...you know how it is with Hiko...if I'm going to be his sucessor someday I have to."

Still no response. She must be furious with him. Either that or she had had a fight with her mother; although her father wanted her to be able to defend herself, and thus trained her with a nagninata, her mother insisted that she a Polarioid of Japanese feminity; kimono-clad forever, which Yuriko resented with every inch of her heart.

Still, he had to make sure. He pulled himself higher up, so he could just see over the top of the roof, and caught a glimpse of Yuriko lying on her back, facing into the sun, her eyes closed. She was sunbathing.

He caught himself for a minute. Yuriko. Sunbathing? A girl who hated practically all things feminine with the exception of boys? Doing something VERY feminine? As his mind raced to try and find an explanation, he realized that at the same time, his gaze had not left her. Her hair, black as the night sky, strands that were not caught underneath her blew gently in the breeze. Her hair was down; he had always insisted that she looked better that way, not with all sorts of sticks and other objects stuck in it to hold it in place. She agreed with him, and giggled as he blushed everytime he said it. Her beautiful little hands, folded across her chest, rising and falling with her breath. His eyes followed every curve of her body, all gifts from a geometric heaven. Yuriko would kill him if she caught Navcase spying on him, especially for this. As discretion is the better part of valor, Navcase carefully climbed down, leaving Yuriko to her rest. He had felt something. Did he love her as much as she did him? Or did he just find her attractive? "No," he thought to himself, it was not that. Despite how much he dreaded her flying tackles, or her incredible and unending happiness, she had grown on him, little by little. Soon, he would let her know how he felt.

"Kinuko, get ready. We've spotted something. The sensors indicate that they've got energy. Lots of it, and they're heading this way. Take them down." Toshihiko replied.
"Got it." she said, taking aim, lining her crosshairs up with Navcase's head.

Navcase came out of his daydream to notice a sparkle of light in the distance. Although it could have been the sun, he barely made out a figure aimed at him.

"Yuriko, let's get out of here. Quietly." he said.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Look over there." He said pointing towards the tree.

"Dammit! They're on to us!" Kinuko swore.
"Firing will cause too much of a commotion. We'll take care of it." Toshihiko said.

"Um, Navcase, I think we better start running." Ran said, pointing to the two men heading towards them.
"You're right. Let's go." he said, taking off in the following direction.

"Mr. Furukiayu, we've found them. They came to the park just like you thought they might. We're going to need some help though." Toshihiko said.
"Very well. I will have my own men keep tabs on them and try and lead them towards the Common. There you should be able to deal with them." Tenma replied.

Racing off at high speed out of the park, Toshihiko and Touru ran in hot pursuit, changing course to attempt to get to the Commons before they did. Thus, as the trio raced down the street away from their pursuers, their pursuers ran up the steps at the Charles MGH stop to hop on the Red Line to beat them there.

"Navcase! Yuriko! If we follow the path of the train, we should end up in the park where we can try and loose them!" Ran shouted out.

The two nodded and headed after the younger girl.

"Boss, they're headed for the Common. We've got them now." a man said from a parked car as the group ran by.

Minutes later, out of breath, the three rushed into the Common from the South end of the Park, heading towards the intersection, only to find the two approaching from the NORTH end of the park.

"Great. Just great." Navcase said.
"We've got more trouble." Yuriko said, pointing to the men coming up behind them.
"Make that triple." Ran said, pointing to the Draconai that flew in and landed around them, scaring off all of the parkgoers.
"That's as far as you go." Toshihiko said. "Our boss doesn't want you messing in his buisness."
"And who might your boss be, may I ask?" Navcase asked.
"That's for us to know and you to not find out. You want to leave, you've got to go through us first." Toshihiko said, reaching into his coat and pulling two identical fancy-looking pistols, one black and one pure white, from his coat. He nodded to Touru, who removed his suit coat, and instantly the tattoes on his body began to glow brightly, frightening Navcase and Yuriko by its ki alone.

"Ran, get behind us. When we tell you to run, head away and don't let them catch you."

Ran nodded and stepped behind the two warriors. Focusing their Chi, Navcase and Yuriko changed to their battle gear, and brought out their weapons. Navcase took the Shinken no Kamae stance, and glowed brightly as he prepared for battle. He had a duty to protect Ran, and Yuriko.

Yuriko brandished her Naginata, also prepared for battle. She had to protect Ran too. However, she also had to ensure that Navcase was all right too.

They stood ready to attack whomever struck first. But who would? Would it be the two men? Or would their associates from behind strike first? Or would the Draconai just kill all of them?

The two Seishi stood ready, watching each group of enemies closely, both sides waiting in anticipation of the first attack...

Next Episode

NAVCASE: Next time, our battles with our new enemy begins, as they bring out all the stops to try and dispose of us.

SAKURA: YAHOO!!!!! FIGHT TIME!!!!!!

NAVCASE: It's not that exciting, we're not even sure why they're trying to get rid of us.

SUIREN: THREE BISHIES FIGHTING!!! WAI!!!! I'm gonna need lots of towels after this!

NAVCASE: ::sweatdrops:: It's lots of action next time on Ronin Warriors: Hell Back on Earth, Combat Resumes. Don't miss it.

YURIKO: ::pouts:: and we didn't get any Shinta-chan fan service yet...