:: 5 ::

"You have contacted them?" Kayura asked, sliding the screen door closed with the tips of her fingers.

Rowen put his back to the snowy garden, pulled his helmet free, and shook a hand through his hair. "They're on their way. I can go and meet them to get the jewel. We don't all have to go and leave the castle unprotected."

"All the same, I shall accompany you," Kayura demurred. "You will need my assistance to open the gate."

Rowen studied her: small, serene, and almost insubstantial in her layered cloud of winter-colored robes, an entirely different creature than the blood-soaked warrior they had met by the roadside. In her low slippers, she barely came up to the bottom of Rowen's neck-plate.

"Something on your mind, Tenku?" Kayura prompted, and Rowen realized he'd been staring.

"Sorry, it's just... You haven't aged a day since then, have you?"

Kayura seemed startled by the question. Her painted eyes widened in shock and surprise, then she turned her face away, veiling her expression with the shining black curtain of her hair. "When Arago ruled," she said, hesitatingly, "this land was trapped in an eternal spring, the season of the samurai, the season of his favorite warrior. After Arago's defeat, summer came for the first time in centuries. It lasted a long time, and was followed by an equally lengthy and bountiful autumn. Our storehouses were full to overflowing, and it was well that they were. For winter followed fall, and it has reigned, unrelenting, for ten times as long as the other seasons. Our food supplies dwindle, but Spring does not come, and we do not age." She put her face in her hands, her slim shoulders bowed. "I am not Sh'ten, Tenku. His armor suffers me to wear it, but little more. I cannot bring spring back to the Netherworld. It is gone, and I fear it will not come again. Even should we prove victorious in this battle, we are doomed to a winter without end."

Rowen reached out a hesitant hand and placed it on her shoulder, his armored fingers gleaming through her hair. "We'll find an answer," he said, though he wasn't sure himself what it could be. "Spring'll come back, and it'll be just like Narnia, you know?"

"Like what?" Kayura asked, her grief changing to confusion.

"Ehh," Rowen said. "Nevermind."

Kayura gave him a soft, sad little smile. "How strange we must seem to you, as much as you to us. When last we met, you were little more than children."

Rowen would have said that Kayura had been little more than a child herself, a stolen doll pulled along by Arago's phantom fingertips. But before Rowen could speak, Kayura leaned up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek, like a little girl greeting a favorite older brother.

"Now, you seem so much older than we are, and still so much more alive."

"Only because you've been stuck in time so long," Rowen said, glad for the chilly air to excuse the flare of color across his face. "You guys feel old to us, just... in a different way. Historically, I guess."

"I don't know. You always seemed more alive to me. Brighter than us, your blood hotter. The five of you always fought with such relentless fury, but fighting beside you today, I saw you not as boys in the fire of youth, but as seasoned warriors, wise in your elements and sharp in your skills. Your blood is still hot, hotter than ours, but time has given you the will to temper it. You have grown in the time that has passed, and we here have been left behind, unchanged." She looked at the garden, at the spreading branches of the cherry trees, black against snow and refusing to bloom. "It made me feel strange, realizing just how much mortal time has passed the Netherworld by."

"I don't know about wise, but I feel pretty damn old when I look at the mirror in the every morning." Rowen flashed her a grin; her compliments had stung more blood into his face than her kiss had. "Don't worry about it. When things get back to normal here, and your seasons are in order, it won't feel that way."

"Maybe that's true," Kayura said, and put her fingertips to her lips, to hide her laugh. "Because you look much like that little boy I fought years ago when you're blushing."

"Who's blushing?" Rowen demanded, and put his helmet back on in a hurry. "Anyway. We should go and meet Yuli. The sooner we get the jewel, the sooner we can help you get things right again."

"Come over and drop off the Jewel, my ass," Yuli said, opening the door of the jeep and letting a slightly carsick tiger out of the back seat. "I'm surprised he didn't ask for us to deliver a pizza while we're at it."

"If Kento had been the one to call, he would have." Mia wrapped her arms around the haft of her naginata, and hugged herself through the thin leather of her jacket. It had stopped raining, though enough water still dribbled off the trees to spatter across the hood of the parked jeep, and it was deeply chilly. The air smelled of wet rock and wet road and wet trees, and of something musty and electrically smoky that Mia and Yuli knew all too well: the scent of stale souls imprisoned in armor.

"Like we wouldn't know that there was trouble brewing," Yuli continued, and there was a faint bitterness to his words. "Maybe we don't have mystic armor, but we're not stupid, and we've been doing this every bit as long as they have."

Mia gave him a smile he did not see, thinking to herself how he still struggled for equality in the eyes of the others, and especially Ryou. She could empathize with that, at least. Ryou was not an easy man to love, and he would be the first to admit it. "Well," she said, "we're not going to toddle off home like good sidekicks this time, are we?"

Yuli grinned at her over his shoulder, one hand on the hilt of the katana shoved through the belt of his jeans. "When have we ever?"

White Blaze made a low whurf of agreement, and butted his broad head against Yuli's thighs. Still, Mia could not help the flutter of nerves low in her belly when the vast, red torii gate appeared out of the mist, ominous and familiar, the sharp horns of its top beam lost in the clouds. Two figures emerged from the widening crack in its maw, and a moment later Rowen and Kayura lighted on the pavement. Mia glanced beyond them for a flash of crimson armor, but no one else was coming.

Coward. she thought to herself, uncharitably. Are you afraid you'll lose your nerve to go off and die if you see me?

"Thanks for coming so fast," Rowen said, clanking across the road to Yuli. "We'll just get the jewel and get outta your hair--"

"Rowen Hashiba," Mia said, more steely than the point of her spear, "Do you honestly think we're going to let you go back in there alone?"

"I ain't alone," Rowen said, with an impatient gesture at Kayura, in the oni armor, with her staff at the ready. "In case you hadn't noticed."

"Of course I noticed," Mia said, and turned to Kayura with a warm smile and an outstretched hand. "It's so nice to see you again."

"I hope you've been well," Kayura returned, equally polite.

"All the same," Mia said, whirling on Rowen again once the pleasantries were done, "The five of you haven't ever managed to accomplish anything without us, and I don't see what point there is in leaving us here. You need us, and you always have."

"Mia, please," Rowen said, his eyes flicking to Kayura. "Not in front of--"

"You don't get the jewel unless you bring us with you," Yuli said, evenly. "Not to be difficult, Lady Kayura," he said, with an apologetic shrug in her direction, "but we're coming with you."

Kayura blinked at him in sudden recognition, replacing the grown man before her with the boy in her memories. "Yuli! Time has passed in the mortal world, hasn't it?" She shook her head. "Still, I must agree with Tenku. The Netherworld is at war, and bringing civilians into it is out of the question."

Mia tightened her grip on her spear, meaningfully. "I haven't been a civilian since before I was twenty."

"Mia," Rowen said, squinting with frustration, "can I talk to you over here, just a sec?" He took her elbow in his gauntleted hand, and led her a little ways behind the jeep, next to the mountain spring in the cliffside.

"Rowen," Mia said, before he could start, "you're not talking me out of this."

"There's no talking about it," Rowen answered. "Listen, Mia. I'm second-in-command, and I've got my orders from Ryou. If I bring you back with me, he'll kill me."

"So he wants to leave me here while all of you go off and die, then," Mia retorted.

"Yes," Rowen answered, with emphasis. "Mia, it doesn't look good over there. We've got crap odds and it's a losing battle. I promised Ryou I would make sure you stayed here where it's safe."

"And if you lose?" Mia said, catching the side of Rowen's helmet and making him look her in the eye. "If you lose, and the Netherworld gates come open, and all hell breaks loose in the mortal world? Where's going to be 'safe' then, Rowen?"

"He loves you more than anything in the world, Mia," Rowen said softly, startling tears into Mia's wide green eyes. "It would tear him apart if you were there. He would want to protect you, and he knows he can't."

Mia spent a moment to compose herself, swallowing. "I'm not a little girl anymore, Rowen," she said, when she trusted herself to speak. "I can defend myself, now. And I'll have Yuli with me, if you have to insist on me having a big strong boy to look after me." White Blaze appeared around the corner of the Jeep, and butted Rowen hard in his armored backside. "And a tiger," Mia concluded. "Seriously, an all-Japan kendo champ and an immortal tiger, I mean, what else would I need?"

Rowen took her by both shoulders. "I know you can fight, but it's not a matter of you being strong enough. We might all die."

"And you think only armor-bearers deserve to die beside the ones they love?"

Rowen flinched; Mia had struck home.

"It's not just Ryou's choice, Rowen," Mia said.

"I've got orders--"

"Ryou," Mia interrupted, "cannot order me to do anything." Her eyes narrowed. "I'm not one of you, remember?"

Rowen's shoulders slumped, but he laughed in his defeat. "You've always been one of us," he said. "But you're right, none of us could ever make you do anything you don't want to do." He changed his grip on her shoulders into a hug, and she wrapped one arm around his backplate. Hugging men in mystic armor was a tricky prospect, but she was a pro at it by now, and could manage even with her naginata.

"Just do us all a favor," Rowen continued, pulling away, "and if Ryou lives through this, just marry the son of a bitch, will ya?"

Mia's lower lip twitched, but she held firm. "He has to ask me first."

"Babe," Rowen said, turning around, "You know the man's as dumb as a bag of bricks. If you want him, you're gonna hafta club him over the head, or something." He glanced back at the Netherworld gate, and sighed. "But at this rate, you might need to take a number."

"You've grown," Kayura said, studying Yuli appraisingly.

"It's been sixteen years," Yuli said. "I'm twenty-eight." He was giving her a wary look, and she could not blame him. She must seem to Yuli as she had to the others, a ghost from another time, unchanged from their last parting.

"I see." She tilted her head at him, looking him up and down. "And what armor is it that you bear?"

Yuli flinched as though she had struck him across the face. "I don't have any armor."

Kayura blinked her surprise. "No? But surely..." She took a step closer to him. There was no question, the staff of the Ancients chimed softly as it drew near him, and she did not think it was not the Jewel that caused it. But perhaps it was only his long years in close proximity to other armors. If Yuli had the virtue of an armor-bearer, it had not yet blossomed on his brow. There was only a dull light there that Kayura, with her bloodline, could barely perceive. One thing was certain: there was something very curious indeed about this man that the boy Yuli had become.

"We're ready," Mia announced, returning triumphant with a submissive Rowen behind her. "We'll be coming along, Kayura, if that's all right with you."

"I will not refuse any able warriors," Kayura said, but she was looking at Yuli. "If you are willing to fight, you are welcome. Let us make haste, then."

The gates opened again with a tap of the golden staff, and the four of them vanished into the cloudy light of the Netherworld.

Ryou was waiting with the others in Kayura's main hall, and his face lit up as Rowen came through the sliding screen with Kayura. But once he took stock of the number of arrivals, his expression switched to fury with the speed of a brush-fire changing direction. He stood up, striding towards them with his kimono sleeves flapping.

"Sorry, Rowen," Ryou said, tersely, "But I thought I said to leave Mia and Yuli behind?"

"Eh--" Rowen began, and got no further as Mia shoved past him, the butt of her naginata thudding down on the tatami for emphasis.

"And since when do I have to do what you tell me to, Ryou Sanada?"

"Since maybe always if you like staying alive," Ryou shot back, rising to her bait. "Yuli! Why did you let her come?"

"Hey man, I don't let her do anything!" Yuli held up his hands in defense. "Leave me outta this."

"Yes, Ryou," Mia said, jabbing a forefinger into the front of Ryou's crimson kimono, "Leave Yuli out of this. I'm here because I'm not some princess pining away in a tower, and because the fate of the world--astounding as it may be--is just as important to me as it is to you. I'm here, and I'm going to fight, and there's nothing you or anyone else can say to change my mind."

Ryou opened his mouth, Mia brought her spear down hard on his foot, and Ryou was done. "Do whatever the hell you want," he grumbled at last, and limped over to sit with the others.

"Thank you," Mia answered curtly, marching over to the cushion next to Yuli, "I will."

Anubisu, watching the exchange with unrestrained mirth, let out a short bark of laughter at Ryou's defeat. "Ha! Wildfire, I cannot believe a warrior like you would let his woman order him around in such a manner! It is most amusing!"

"Be quiet, Anubisu," Kayura said.

The warlord of Darkness subsided at once. "Yes'm."

Rowen let out a low whistle as he sat down on the cushion next to Sage. "Man, somebody got told."

"Yeah," Kento agreed. "See, man," he said to Anubisu, "that's why we don't come visit you more often. Stuff like that's just embarrasin'."

Anubisu glared at them, but was unwilling to retort with Kayura watching him so closely.

"Where is Naaza?" she asked.

Air stirred in the corner of the room, and the serpentine warlord appeared in his venom-green kimono. "Here, my lady." He settled into the place beside Anubisu, and it was obvious that there was room for two more people to sit in the council by their side. The empty places on either side of the warlords were somehow tragic.

"How is Rajura?" Kayura's armor shifted back into layered robes of silk as she took her place at the head of the group.

"Mending slowly," Naaza grunted. "He will not be fit to fight for some time."

"Then let us hope the Jewel offers some insight." Kayura folded her hands in her robes. "Ryou, I owe you and your comrades an explanation. You must be wondering why I have not made full use of the staff or the Oni armor."

"The thought had crossed my mind," Sage admitted.

"The staff and the armor are opposing forces," Kayura said, looking up at the shakujo, its rings gleaming in the lamplight. "Using them both means I cannot use the full strength of either of them. I suspect this duality, this divide, is somehow symbolic of the divide in my world. We cannot be both, so we are neither. I fear that in order to survive, a great choice must be made." She leveled her gaze at Ryou. "You understand this, do you not?"

"Yes," Ryou admitted, his empty fists closing as though they longed for their swords. "This armor we have is like that. We..." He looked up at the others, and saw the agreement in their faces. "We're incomplete, Kayura."

"Then we all understand the gravity of the situation," Kayura said. "Yuli, the Jewel, if you please."

Yuli had been sitting in uncomfortable silence the whole time, and he jumped as Kayura spoke to him. The whole air of the council room made him nervous, especially the stares from the two warlords across the tatami from him. "Of course," he said, and fumbled to get the comma-shaped ruby off his phone strap. "Here it is."

Kayura cupped the gem in her hands, staring down into its flickering depths. The moment it had passed into her keeping, a light began to stir within the stone. "Yes," Kayura said softly, as though to herself. "Perhaps this will have the answer we have been searching for." The stone trembled in her palm, and then it began to spin. It floated an inch above Kayura's fingers, whirling furiously, and a red light pulsed outward in a blinding flash. Everyone but Kayura turned away from the intensifying glare, and then, all at once, it was over. The jewel went dark and tumbled down the hem of Kayura's robe, while the last of the ancients fell backwards into a pool of white silk and black hair, her sightless eyes fixed on the empty air above her.

"Lady Kayura!" Naaza and Anubisu shouted together, and made to move towards her lifeless form, but a sharp cry from Yuli made them stop.

"Don't!" Yuli, sitting closest to Kayura, bent down beside her without touching her or the seemingly-inert jewel. "Don't disturb her. She's in some kind of trance. The Jewel has her."

"And now we have lost one more of our number," Anubisu grumbled. "We do not have time for this mystical nonsense! We must crush our enemies before we are crushed in turn."

"Oh?" Sai shot back at him. "And how do you propose to do that? Outnumbered, with weakened human forces?"

"You, Ronin," Anubisu spat, "are not one to tell us how to fight our own battles!"

"Torrent is right," Naaza said, laying his hand heavily on Anubisu's shoulder, to restrain him. "This is not about your feelings for Kayura, Anubisu," he added, in a low voice.

The warrior of darkness pulled away from Naaza with a snarled oath on his lips, and the others tensed for a brawl. But Anubisu had not yet finished his insult before their virtues all sang out in sudden warning, and an explosion rattled the castle down to its very foundations.

"The gates!" Naaza was fully armored by the time he was on his feet. "They're under attack!"

"The enemy has sensed our weakness," Anubisu said, his cape unfurling behind his spiked shoulderplates as he rose.

"We'll help," Ryou offered, and in a moment the quarrel was forgotten and the warriors were all armored, all before Yuli and Mia even had a chance to stand. "Yuli," Ryou said, loosening his katana in their scabbards, "I want you to stay here with Mia and White Blaze, and watch over Kayura and Rajura."

"What?" Yuli shouted, as the others rushed by him in a blur of bright colors, towards the rising sounds of battle. Yuli gripped the hilt of his katana as though it was proof of his competence. "Ryou! I can fight!"

"And so can I--" Mia began.

"Look, this is not about you two!" Ryou shouted back, and then struggled to get his voice under control. "Listen, Yuli. We've got to buy us some time. Kayura has to come out of this with answers for us, Rajura can't protect himself, and if you and Mia aren't safe there's no reason for me to go on fighting, do you understand? You're the only one I can trust with this."

Yuli's face fell. Even now, after all this time, he was left behind. "...All right, Ryou."

Ryou gave him a bracing pat on the arm. "Countin' on you, buddy." His eyes flicked to Mia, but there was nothing he could say in words, and she was the first to look away.

"Be careful," she murmured.

Ryou swallowed. "Blaze," he said, to the white tiger, "take care of them. And you two, get Rajura in here with you and barricade the doors, got it?"

And in a swirl of silk and armor he was gone, leaving only the distant scent of smoke behind him.

::6::

The Warlord of Illusion hardly stirred as White Blaze gently pulled his futon into the council room, drawing it close beside the center brazier for warmth. Yuli barred the doors after him as he had been told, but the chamber was deep within the castle and most of the decent fortifications were several layers out. He felt a little foolish barricading flimsy wooden doors, with nothing but paper-covered frames on all other sides.

Mia paced nervously near Kayura, and Yuli knelt down beside Rajura's futon with his sword across his knees.

The sound of battle had become almost commonplace in the distance, the cries and the clamor hushed enough that Yuli could hear the snow sliding from the tree branches outside. Rajura shuddered with pain in his sleep, and Yuli reached out with hesitant fingers to touch his hair. As though that cautious touch was a mother's caress, Rajura went still, falling back into deeper sleep.

"I always was afraid of you the most," Yuli admitted, in a whisper that Mia would not hear and Rajura, unconscious, was unlikely to. "Ever since that day at the mountain temple, right after we found Sai. Even when you turned to fight on our side, I was still afraid of you." He smoothed a tangle out of Rajura's hair, frowning. The man lying before him was sick and wounded, covered in more bandages than clothing. Where his skin did show it was deathly pale, and the deep purple smudge of exhaustion under his good eye made him look haggard even in his sleep. The scar looked like the remains of some tragic accident, not the haughty trophy of an ancient battle. "You're younger than me, now," Yuli said, in a kind of helpless wonder. "Sh'ten told me you were twenty-four when the Netherworld took you. All those years I spent terrified of you, and now..." Yuli shook his head. "I never even knew you."

Mia tapped him on the shoulder, and Yuli jumped. "Wha--Lady Kayura--?"

"No," Mia said, apologetically. She held out a cup for Yuli to take. The tea had grown cold, but she had warmed it again on the brazier. "Still nothing. I can only barely tell she's breathing."

The reverberations of someone's sure-kill thudded dully through the castle, and Yuli clutched his tea in a white-knuckled grip. The sounds of battle were growing louder. From all over, now, came the tramp of armored feet, the urgent cries of indistinct orders. "You don't really think this is all going to end here, do you, Mia?"

"Maybe," Mia said. "It's where it began. I don't know what to think."

Yuli looked down at Rajura's scarred, too-young face. "...Me, either."

Half of the western castle fortifications had been destroyed. By the time Ryou caught up with the others there, the battle was fully joined, and a black wave of armored shells, like ant carapaces filled with malevolent intent, had begun to beat themselves against the castle's inner defense.

"It's not good," Rowen admitted, drawing up alongside Ryou and sending a golden volley of arrows into the horde.

"Any sign of their commander?"

"Not that I've seen," Rowen said, leveling his bow again. "Just the cannon-fodder here--" the archer made a choking noise in his throat, lowering his bow in awe. "Although I suppose," he concluded, in a strangled voice, "that could be it."

A massive, sinewy claw had emerged from the lake behind the castle, towering over the figures below. It was coated in glittering white scales, each one the size of a knight's shield, razor-edged and flashing with rainbow shades of iridescence. It came down on the shore and the force of the impact sent warriors from both sides flying, the damaged walls sliding into heaps of rubble. Another claw, a sinuous curve of back, and then a great, fanged head with blazing eyes that looked right into Ryou's soul, and knew him.

"Kikoutei," Ryou breathed, as the dragon shook its tail free of the water, and swept a row of docks out of existence. With a trumpeting cry the combined spirit of their armors plunged upward into the sky, swirled around itself, and lunged down to devour those who once contained it. Ryou felt the others gather to his side, heard the clink of their armor as they readied their defense, and knew, as they did, that they would not survive this battle.

Kayura stood in an empty village. The houses were neat and tidy, the streets clear of stones and rubbish. And yet there was not so much as the hum of a dragonfly's wing to be heard. The pines along the ridge were as still as though they had been painted on the sky, the clouds seemed fixed in their places.

"Hello?" Kayura's voice echoed briefly and then stopped, muted. She was an intruder there, and yet she thought she knew the place, somewhere down the centuries to her earliest memories. Her feet led her down the paths unerringly, past gardens with the harvest hanging patiently on the vine, through vacant market stalls with no sellers or buyers for the wares heaped up on display. She left the village behind her as she traveled on a white gravel path through the pines, up mossy steps beneath bright crimson Torii gates, until she came to the temple.

Kaos was waiting for her.

Kayura hesitated on the last step, sandal half-hanging from her foot. Would he be angry with her? Had she fulfilled her destiny as her clan wished? There was so much she did not understand, did not know. What if she had done everything wrong?

The monk tilted back the hat shading his eyes, and held out his hands in welcome, smiling. Kayura, who for years uncounted had known nothing of her family, ran laughing and weeping into the arms of her ancestor.

Yuli's teacup clattered to the tatami mat, his katana flashing from its sheath as armored bodies thudded against the door. Mia was on her feet beside him before the cup had finished rocking on the floor. The red tassel of her naginata swished through the air as she brought the spear down into a defensive position. White Blaze, curled in a protective crescent around Kayura, bared his teeth in a snarl, his hackles rising.

"They've made it this far inside?" Mia exclaimed, but Yuli knew what it was she was really asking.

"Ryou and the others must not have been able to hold them back," Yuli said, sword hilt creaking under his grip. His eyes stung with unshed tears.

"I won't believe it," Mia answered, but her mouth was a thin line, her eyes too bright. "And neither will you. We can't lose faith in them now."

The doors shuddered; they were ramming them. Black fog began to creep through the straining doors, fog with the stale, cloying scent of evil.

"C'mon, Kayura," Yuli muttered, though gritted teeth. "Any time now."

But Kayura did not stir, and the jewel did not shine. Yuli wiped beads of perspiration from his burning forehead. "The two of us won't last long against them, you know."

"I know," Mia said.

Yuli nodded. Mia understood. "It's been fun, Mia. The adventure of a lifetime."

Another impact jolted the doors. The beam Yuli had used for a barricade was bowing out towards them. In the rising smoke, they could see flickering shadows from the corners of their eyes, projected on the white paper doors to the garden. The enemy was encircling them.

"For me too, Yuli." Mia took a step closer to him, pivoting backwards to face the advancing soldiers from behind, putting her back to his. "Let's do this."

The black fog was roiling towards them, and there were shapes moving inside of it, flickers of metal helms and face-guards, licking streamers of blades. It had almost reached them when Yuli was startled to find himself surrounded by grim-faced samurai in full kit, mounted for battle with pikemen and archers at the ready. He staggered back in awe and confusion.

"Wha--what the--"

"Hurry," someone rasped behind him. "I cannot control it for long."

The army faded in and out briefly, like a television image with poor reception. In the flashes of transparency Yuli could see that the situation had not changed. The doors were giving way, Kayura was unconscious with Mia and White Blaze standing over her. But the Warlord of Illusion was sitting up on his knees, one hand clutched to his belly, the other outstretched to maintain his illusion.

"Rajura!"

"Take the women," Rajura gasped, his pallid face twisting with pain. "Take them and flee... down the canals to the wilds. The castle is fallen, and we are done. I can only hold them back so long."

The scouts had torn through the paper doors at the rear of the council chamber. Mia swung her spear in a wide arc to keep them back from Kayura, from the staff of the ancients. They fell quickly under her blows, but more were coming to replace them. The barred doors in front of Yuli shuddered with a heavy blow. They would not withstand another.

"Go, boy!" Rajura shouted, swaying on his knees. His illusory army flickered, solidified, and Rajura spat blood onto the futon. "That is an order!"

Yuli's heart twisted inside him.

I'm counting on you.

"...No," Yuli said.

The Warlord stared at him. "What?"

"I already have my orders. Ryou told me to stay here and protect you--all of you--and that's what I'm gonna do!"

"You fool!" Rajura snarled. His rage made him choke, and as he curled on the floor, coughing, his illusions dissipated completely. He struck a fist in anger against the floor. "Such pointless loyalty will only result in all our deaths!"

With a resounding crunch the doors splintered apart, and from the jagged ruin there vomited forth a seemingly-endless horde of black-armored enemies. They thundered forward to Yuli, death in their empty eye-slits, and Yuli stood his ground.

"Better that than betrayal!"

Yuli lunged forward to meet them, nothing in him but the longing to hold true to the faith Ryou placed in him. As his sword arched down through the first suit of armor, a golden light bust forth from his brow, blinding his foes. They fell back in awe and fear as Yuli's world exploded in silk, and chains, and cherry petals.

::7::

The Kikoutei-dragon swept Kayura's army aside like gnats, and as Kento flew through the air to crash down on a heap of rubble for the umpteenth time that day, he considered the prospect of just not getting up again. Everything hurt. Each breath was full of pain and the taste of blood, he could feel the burning stickiness of his injuries inside the shell of his armor. For that moment their adversary's attention was elsewhere, and he could lie still in the eddies of quiet at the edges of the battle's turbulence. It was weak, it was cowardly. Kento wanted to meet death on his feet. But surely he had fought enough, had enough last stands, enough last-minute victories. It couldn't go on forever. There had to be an end of some sort, and this was surely as good a day as any.

A pair of hands slipped under his armpits, pulling him up into a sitting position against a sturdy breastplate. "You're not thinking of leaving me, are you, Xiu?"

Sai only used Kento's Chinese name in the most intimate of moments, and it was like a shock of cold water. Kento shook off the worst of the inertia and pain, and felt the pulse of armor-spirit and adrenaline moving in his veins again. "Nah," Kento said. "I was just taking a breather, that's all."

"That's good." Sai's smiling face was streaked with sweat, and dirt, and blood. His surcoat had been slit to ribbons, plastered to his armor with the mud that was all that was holding it together. "Because if you get killed out here, I'm telling everyone that you keep a trading card of Aerith by your bedside, and you always cry at the end of Advent Children."

Kento looked up at Sai in goggle-eyed horror. "You wouldn't."

Sai nodded, grave. "It would be my only consolation if you went and broke my heart by dying."

"You know I'd never do that to you, baby." Kento slid his fingers inside the face-guard of Sai's helmet, against his lover's bare cheek. "We go out together, or not at all."

Sai smiled down at him, and kissed the bloody palm of Kento's gauntlet.

"Besides," Kento continued, "you wouldn't want me to tell anyone about your Finding Nemo plushie collection that you actually still sleep with every night--"

Sai pulled away, yanking Kento the rest of the way to his feet in the same motion. "Now would be a good time to shut up and fight, love."

Ryou shouted his attack cry in a voice that was going hoarse, but it, like all the others' attacks, bounced harmlessly from the dragon's flank. They were fighting the combined power of their own armors, and they did not even have the full complement of nine on their side. Ryou staggered back to give Nazaa better clearance for his poison-whip. Only the warlords, still in command of their original armors, had any effect on the dragon. But they were only two men, and their strength was fading.

Looking around the battlefield, Ryou's heart sank. Most of Kayura's foot soldiers had been killed in the first sally, the remainder had fled with the appearance of Kikoutei. Now nothing but their twisted bodies remained, their souls rushing to fortify the ranks of the enemy. On the near side of the castle wall, Kento and Sai struggled to hold off the endless tide of ghost soldiers. Further off, Sage was on his knees with only his sword to hold him up, blood running freely down his face. Rowen stood over him, flinging bolt after bolt into the black mass of soldiers. He had long since given up trying to strike at Kikoutei; even the arrows that sank into the beast's gleaming eyes had been blinked away. The five of them were only echoes of what Kikoutei was, and they could not defeat it alone.

If only Rajura could fight with us, if only Kayura could use the Oni's total strength, we might stand a chance. Ryou shook his head as though such distractions could be physically cast off. As it was, he hoped that the others were still alive. While they had been holding off the dragon, any number of soldiers had slipped by them and headed for the castle. Don't let me down, Yuli, Ryou thought, and rushed across the battlefield to lend Rowen and Sage his support.

Ryou had cleared most of the rubble and was only a few yards from Rowen when the archer suddenly began waving his arms at Ryou in warning. Over the sounds of battle, his words were indistinct, but their meaning became clear as a giant, clawed foot crashed down to the ground, scant inches from Ryou's face. Armored bodies went flying in all directions, and Ryou landed badly, on his back.

The Kikoutei dragon had flung off the weakening attacks of the two Warlords, and turned its attention once more to its former master. Ryou struggled to rise, but the spirit of his old armor was faster. Talons sank deep into the rock beneath him, and Ryou was pinned under the dragon's crushing weight. He flailed in an effort to bring his swords into play, but it was useless. He could not so much as scratch the beast's armor.

The others tried to come to Ryou's rescue, but the dragon swept them away with a condescending twitch of its tail. Ryou was the one it wanted. The massive head swiveled lower on the sinuous neck, the lantern eyes burned like a pair of twin suns. The breath from its maw had all the heat of a volcano's rage, and for the first time in many years, Ryou feared the fire. As the fanged jaws stretched wide to crush him, Ryou braced for death.

"Kou Rai Sen!"

Over the sound of his own certain demise, the cry seemed to come from a great distance. It caught the dragon's attention just long enough for Ryou to wonder where he had heard that attack before, and then thick streamers of scarlet light tore through the space between Ryou and the dragon's head. With a clatter of iron the light became chains, stretching in every direction, securing the great beast to the ground. As Kikoutei tried to rise, it was hampered by the chains and fell, unable to fly free. It screamed in frustration, clawing vast trenches into the earth.

Ryou scrambled out from beneath the dragon's claw, and into a veritable blizzard of cherry petals.

Kayura's learned to use the Oni! Ryou thought, recognizing the shape of the armored body approaching him. He had her name in his mouth before he realized that the figure in the Oni armor was much too tall to be Kayura, that his hair was short and shaggy, and he wore in it a single tiny braid that glinted with the colored light of five seed beads.

"Yuli?!"

Ryou's erstwhile sidekick skidded to a halt beside him, and reached down with one blue-gauntleted hand to pull Ryou to his feet. Sh'ten's virtue of loyalty burned so fiercely on his brow that it was hard to make out the strokes of the kanji, and the snow seemed to melt at the touch of his footsteps. Ryou's strength surged inside of him, and his breath no longer plumed in the cold.

Spring had come to the Netherworld, at last.

"Sorry we're late," Yuli said, and an army emerged from the swirl of cherry petals at his back. Half of them were illusion and at their lead was Rajura riding astride White Blaze, neither of them looking too pleased at the arrangement. The others were the remains of Kayura's army. She ran unmounted before them, dressed in simple o-yoroi and a lacquered helmet that shielded her eyes. In one hand she bore a golden sword with the shakujo's rings on the hilt, and the jewel of life gleamed at her throat. The fresh forces, both real and conjured, fell upon the remaining soldiers with a fervor that was all too real.

Ryou started to ask what the hell had just happened, but he was startled by a shrill cry behind him.

"Don't you dare touch him!"

A soldier had crept up behind Ryou while he was distracted, sword raised to strike Ryou's head from his shoulders. The tassled point of a naginata had pierced through the soldier's breastplate, and as the empty armor crumbled, Ryou looked past it and into Mia's face.

She was dirty, bloodied, spattered with canal-mud. Her hair had come undone in a tangled red cloud, and her eyes flashed as she yanked the point of her weapon out of the armor shell. She was easily the most beautiful thing Ryou had ever seen. For a moment the battle, Yuli's new armor, and all of the Netherworld faded around him as he reached out to Mia and told her so, long and passionately, with an eloquence he could never manage in words.

"Excuse me, Wildfire," Kayura said, with a wry tone at having to interrupt a warrior mid-kiss. "We are not quite done here."

"Right, Sorry!" Ryou said, stepping back from Mia, who had gone pink, and not from the heat of the fight. "What--um--what're we doing?"

"Fighting your old armors," Yuli reminded him, dryly.

Mia coughed a little and said, relieved in more ways than one, "Here come the others!"

Rajura had left his illusory army to gather up a battered Anubisu and Naaza, and brought them to stand with Kayura.

"You're awake!" Rowen exclaimed, clambering over the rubble to reach them, with Kento and Sai and Sage close behind. "What do we need to--holy mother of god." He had just sorted out that it was Yuli, and not Kayura, in the Oni armor.

"Hi, guys!" Yuli said, as though he was not in armor, as though they were not standing in the middle of a battle still to be won.

Kayura rattled her sword before the shocked gurgles could turn into questions. A keening roar from the Kikoutei dragon emphasized her point. "I have spoken to Kaos," she announced.

Everyone went quiet, their attention on her complete.

"At his counsel, and knowing that there was a warrior ready to take up the Oni's chain and the virtue of Loyalty, I have laid it aside forever. In exchange, Kaos bestowed upon me the full inheritance of his power." Kayura reached up and unlatched her helmet. Her hair cascaded down around her shoulders, as white as the first snow of winter. "Warriors, it is time to end this." She lifted her head, and as the warming breeze caught her gleaming hair and spread it out like a pennant, they all went to their knees before her.

"We are yours to command, Lady Kayura," Ryou said.

"Then know that you have put aside your destiny for long enough," Kayura said. "You must shoulder it again. Wildfire. Strata. Halo. Torrent. Hardrock." She walked between them as she spoke, and without a word, they rose and followed her. Down the ragged landscape they went, with the others following at a distance, to where the dragon lay, defeated and straining beneath the Oni's chains. It rolled one eye towards Kayura, and at the warriors behind her, and let out a single, plaintive cry.

"I know," Kayura said, running a small hand over the cruel antlers of the beast. "I will end your suffering." The rings on her sword clanged wildly as she held up the blade. "Brace yourselves!" she cried, and the golden blade thrust down into the dragon's tear-bright eye.

Ryou's heart burst into flames within his breast. The fire licked over him from head to foot, consuming, engulfing. In the wake of the flames there were other sensations, a rush of air, a shiver of lightning, the crushing force of the tide and the slow omnipotence of stone.

Ryou opened his eyes, unaware that he had closed them. The dragon was gone. The soldiers were gone. The netherworld castle stood whole and unblemished against a gilded sky, and all the sakura were blooming. Ryou's armor, like Kayura's hair, was as white and shining as the mirror of the heavens.

As quickly as it had come, it was gone from him; the four elements scattered home until only the fire was left. But as his friends' faces were illuminated in the otherworldly light of their long-lost armor, Ryou knew that, like theirs, it would come again when needed, when called for.

Kikoutei was his once more.

::8::

Under the largest sakura in the castle gardens, there was a humble marker of black stone. Half-buried beneath a thick fall of pink blossoms, it bore only a few kanji of inscription, one name. Yuli swept the petals from the stone's base, placed a bowl of plain rice on it, pinned a single incense stick among the grains, and lit it. The coil of smoke unraveled before the engraved marks of Sh'ten Douji's name, and Yuli bowed.

"You were a friend to him in those days he was apart from us, were you not?"

Yuli had known Rajura was there. It was a new extra sense, an awareness, and that knowing was almost as unsettling as it would have been had Rajura taken him by surprise. Yuli turned back to Sh'ten's grave, and stared hard at the offering he had placed there. "I think I was more of a pest."

The Warlord of Illusion walked slowly. His wounds were not yet healed, in spite of all Naaza's efforts. Some things simply took time. Sakura petals rustled around his sandals as he moved closer to the grave of his former comrade. "Still, I expect your presence was a comfort. You represented all he wished to save, after all. We were by his side for centuries, and yet at his death, when a warrior most should have his comrades by his side, we abandoned him."

Yuli felt Rajura's guilt as much as he heard it in his voice. They had been close, those two. Sh'ten's defection had stung deep, and his death hurt far more. "It wasn't your fault. I don't think Sh'ten would blame you."

Rajura snorted. "Don't you? Perhaps you give him too much kindness in your memories."

Yuli remembered not the terrifying figure in armor, but the gentle smile, the protective hand, the savior in the last desperate hour. "He was kind," Yuli insisted. And then, with something of a challenge, he added, "Perhaps I knew him better."

Rajura flinched, lip curling in readiness to retort, and then he turned away. "...Perhaps you did, at that." Rajura raised his hand to touch his scar, his strength not yet such that it was worth the vanity of conjuring a patch of cobweb to cover it. "We were comrades, yet always we fought amongst ourselves. But Sh'ten would want us to make you welcome in our company, and so I shall." He looked up at the cherry tree, at the gilded sky. "You have spent so much time among them, it is a very different thing to them, and to you, what it means to be an armor bearer." He turned back to Yuli, and all unexpectedly, bowed at him in respectful greeting. "I wonder what change your spring will bring us, Oni. I fear it as I do the presence of a mighty adversary at my gates, yet I rush towards it gladly to prove myself worthy."

"Thank you," Yuli said, not sure how to swallow Rajura's deference. "And you can call me Yuli."

"Yuwri," Rajura drawled, with a note of distaste. "What manner of name is that?"

"It's short for Ulysses," Yuli said, dusting more sakura petals off of Sh'ten's monument. "My father wanted me to have a western name in case we had to move abroad. Ulysses was an ancient Greek hero he liked."

"I have never heard of this Yurasees," Rajura said, dismissively. "Or this Guriku shogunate. He must not have been much of a hero."

Yuli started to answer that, and then remembered he was talking to a man who had been born when the sun rose on Japan and set in barbaric places nobody there cared about, and there was a centuries-wide gap in their cultures. The past is a foreign country, Yuli thought, And the netherworld isn't even on Earth, really. "You would not have been likely to hear his stories when you lived in the human world," Yuli said at last. "My Japanese name is Jun."

"Jun." The warlord of illusion tasted the name in his mouth as though it was a strange new dish. "A plain name. But it will do." He nodded, satisfied at the conclusion of the interview. "Your friends are returning home, Jun. It is time to say farewell."

"It's not quite the old hood-ornament look," Rowen was saying to Sage, as Yuli and Rajura joined the others in the front courtyard. "Sort of a mishmash. I kinda like it."

"You liked looking like a big blue fork," Sage returned, unconvinced. "I'm not sure you're the best opinion to follow in mystical yoroi fashion for this season."

"It was a little different," Mia considered. "But that's to be expected. It was without you a long time, and it merged with the armor Suzunagi gave you. It couldn't help but evolve."

"And I hope you will not need its aid again anytime soon," Kayura said, taking both of Ryou's hands in hers, like a kindly queen. "But when you do, may you find it strong and certain."

The warlords had gathered silently behind Kayura, and Yuli hesitated at the edge of their line, hovering somewhere between them and the warriors, uncertain.

"And when you need us again," Ryou answered Kayura, "we'll hear you."

Kayura bowed her snowy head, her face serene and untroubled. "I don't doubt you will. But this must be farewell, for now." She brought the butt of her staff down onto the gravel path, and with a low note of power a Netherworld gate appeared over them, dwarfing the castle wall.

Yuli took a breath, but said nothing as the others said their goodbyes and well-wishes. Only when the doors had opened, and Ryou and the others had turned towards the light of the mortal world, did Yuli find his voice.

"Ryou."

They all stopped and looked at him, all of them except White Blaze, who was waiting patiently at Kayura's side.

Ryou frowned with his eyebrows. "Well come on, Yul. It's not like you can catch the next train."

"I know," Yuli said, and then he took a half-step backwards, without turning. The other three warlords were there at his back, and without any prior arrangement they fell into an informal flanking formation around Kayura, an arrow's point with the last of the Ancients at their head. Yuli could feel them there, the separate quarters of his whole, and he could feel Kayura over them all, as a compass point feels the sweep of a needle. Yuli sensed the warmth of golden light on his brow, saw the comprehension on Ryou's face, and emotion closed a thick hand around his throat.

"...You're not coming back with us." It was not a question.

Yuli shook his head in a no.

Ryou bit his lip, nodded to himself. "Yeah," he said. "I guess not."

Yuli looked at them but couldn't meet any one gaze for too long. Sage's approving nod, Rowen's sad smile, Sai's shining eyes, Kento's unabashed tear, they were all too much. Mia had her hands to her mouth, in realization and disbelief. Only Ryou's expression was unchanged. Ryou, Yuli's childhood hero, his friend, his brother in everything but bloodline. They both moved forward and met in the space between, in a rough and raw embrace, and Yuli pressed his face into the leather collar of Ryou's jacket.

"You can always find us in the armor," Ryou whispered roughly.

Yuli nodded. White Blaze had come up to them, and bumped his heavy, furry shoulder against their hips.

"I'm so proud of you." Ryou's grip tightened, almost painful.

Yuli made a little gargling sound. "God, Ryou, stop. I'm already crying in front of these guys."

"Well so am I, dammit." Ryou pulled back to smile at him, and he was. He cuffed Yuli's shoulder. "You'll come visit, right?"

Yuli blinked his burning eyes. "But the gate-- I won't be able--"

"Kayura is going to set one up at the lake, behind Mia's." It was Ryou's turn to grin at the understanding on Yuli's face. "It's private, and it'll be close to us. It's too dangerous to do otherwise now, to seal things off. We'll just have to watch both sides."

Yuli's heart soared. It was so unexpectedly right, and the last shadow over his armor inheritance was lifted.

"So we'll be expecting you over for dinner sooner rather than later," Sai called out, and shot the other Warlords a narrow look. "And bring your friends."

Yuli went to his knees and flung his arms around White Blaze's neck, but it was not out of grief. The tiger nuzzled Yuli's face in a farewell that would not be lasting, Yuli went back to join his new companions, and waved as his old ones vanished one by one through the gate.

"There's just one thing, Sai," Rowen said, just before the light swallowed him entirely. "Are we ever gonna get those blueberry pancakes?"