A Fiery Rain
By Indy/Chance

Email: freedom_night@hotmail.com
Website: Elsewhere

Where the Heart Is

*************

Ryo sat in the chair and thought.  He held an empty box in his hand and was watching Cye read a paper.  Sage was in another chair and Kento sat on the couch beside Cye, reading over his shoulder.

“But this is…” Cye trailed off.

“Impossible?” Sage said for him.  “I thought the same thing at first.  But last night, while she was sleeping, I took Rowen’s orb in Lessa’s room.  It tried to fly straight at her.”

“But where is it now?” inquired Ryo.

Sage glanced at the empty box in Ryo’s hands.  “I don’t know.  It may have followed Lessa or she might have taken it.”

“You said that she didn’t want it, though,” Kento said.  “In fact, from what you told us, she was hysterical over it.  If it followed her—”

“I told Rusty what to do if that sort of thing happened.  He’ll tell Ben, too, so there isn’t much reason to worry.”

“Okay, but what about Rowen’s message?” Cye pointed out.

“Trouble.”  Ryo took the letter from Cye and looked it over for probably the 7^th time.  “We should call Mia.  I don’t know how Rowen knew all this, but we should at least make sure… And do you guys remember why we moved to America in the first place?”

“We just felt like we really should,” recalled Kento.  “Maybe this is it.”

“I can’t understand it.  I can’t quite see Sori or Kyri inheriting Suiko.”  Cye ran his hand through his hair in thought.

“And out of Tess, Ben, Lily, and Rinfi…Kongo choosing one of them…” Kento was obviously unsure what to think.

“Rusty and Korin,” mused Sage.

“What about Rekka?”

The other three Ronins looked at Ryo, suddenly confused.

“If Rowen was right, and our children will inherit our yoroi, but I don’t have any children…what happens to Rekka?”  Ryo almost laughed.  “And another thing: according to Rowen, the yoroi will only go to the next bearer if it’s about to be needed.  So, since Tenku is following Lessa…”

“But she doesn’t want it,” said Sage.

“We’d have to train her quickly if she’s going to be ready for whatever the trouble is.”

For a while, the surviving Ronins contemplated all of this in silence.

“I think you should talk to the kids,” said Maya suddenly.

The men jumped.  They hadn’t even known she was in the room.  She continued, “They should have a say in this.  And for all you know, they may be willing to start training right away.  Maybe they even have an idea of who the yoroi will choose.”

Before anyone else could say a word, Ryo stood up.  “She’s right.  Lessa doesn’t want Tenku, right?”

Sage nodded.

“But: why?”

Sage blinked.  “I’m not sure…” he realized.

Ryo closed his eyes and thought.  “I’ll bet you a hundred to one it’s because of Rowen.  Les probably thinks that her having Tenku would be like pushing whatever part of her father that’s still alive to its death.  She doesn’t want to admit that he really is gone.”

“That sounds like it’s probably true,” commented Cye.

Kento, however, was shaking his head.  “But Sage said she was acting normally this morning, the way she did before they died.  She’s doing better.”

Ryo nodded.  “Right Kento!  Tenku coming to her forced Lessa to face her problem.  She’s learned to deal with it.  So, I think that by now, she may be ready to accept Tenku.”

“That would solve a few more of our problems…”

Maya was still waiting.  “So?  Are you going to talk to them, or not?”

“Yes.”  Cye brought something out of his pocket.  “If one of my kids is going to be dealing with this, I want them to be prepared properly.”  He set his kanji orb on the table that sat in the center of the room.

Sage traced the kanji on his yoroi ball.  He placed it beside Cye’s.  “Rusty might need to use Korin soon.  I’m sure he’ll agree that he needs to know more about it.”

“We’re going to have to find Rekka’s next bearer soon, then…” Ryo glanced at his closest friends with a grim face.  “Guys, we need to do this with one thing in mind… We might not be around to help them through the next war.”

On the table, four of the yoroi gleamed together.  Over them, the Ronins exchanged a look that told Maya more than she wanted to know about the situation.

***********************

            “Excuse my French, but…Damn!”

            “Well, gee, thanks, Lily.”  I was looking in the mirror at the salon.  The hairdresser behind me looked somewhat surprised and impressed with how her work had turned out.  I had had her cut my hair to the neckline and directed her through the process of cutting my bangs just so.  There was that one lock, like the one my father had, that crossed my nose and was always ornery.  And she’d died my hair the same blue as Dad’s.

            Lily whistled.  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were a longer-haired version of Uncle Rowen himself.”

            “Yeah.”  I smiled.  “Now we have to go to a jeweler’s.”

            “A jeweler’s?  Why?”

            I opened my hand to show her the lock of black hair I’d had the hairdresser cut off right at the start of the whole thing.  I needed something from my mother left to me.  That was all I had.  My hair had always been exactly like Mom’s.  “I want this in a locket, so I can keep it with me.”

            “Oh.  Well, I think there’s one that could do that sort of thing at the other end of the mall.  Pay the people and let’s go.  The guys expect us to meet them at the food court in twenty minutes.”  She hurried out of the salon while I paid the fee.

            At the jeweler’s, I explained what I wanted.  The jeweler said that it wouldn’t be done for at least 30 minutes.  So, I told him that I’d be back in time to pick it up and Lily and I headed for the food court.  When we got there, we could see the twins sitting in the Chic-fil-A, goofing off as usual.  “Hey, you Mouri loons!” I called to them.

            They looked around, confused.  They even looked right at me and then past me.  I nearly laughed myself to death.  Lily was practically falling over in laughter.  I walked up to them.  Sori’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.  “Les?”

            “Yep.”

            “Your hair…” trailed off Kyri.

            “Yep.”  I sat down.  “What do you think?”

            “I think I stared at those vid games too long.”

            “Me too,” added Kyri.

            Sori reached across the table and fingered my hair.  “It feels the same.  Just…it’s blue, now.”

            “Okay, okay.”  I swiped his hand aside.  “Have you seen Ben and Rusty?”

            “Yeah,” said Kyri.  “They’re a bit busy, right now.  Some guy at the weapon store challenged Rusty to a sword-fight.  Nothing serious, just a bit of fun.”

            Sori was grinning.  “Rust’s gonna beat that guy’s ass to a pulp!”  Kyri nodded.

            I laughed.  “Let’s go watch, then.”

            “But I’m hungry!” protested Lily.

            I sat back down.  “Now that you mention it, I’m pretty hungry myself…I guess we have time to grab a sandwich and go watch Rusty before I get my locket.”

            “Locket?”

            “I’m having a lock of my hair put in one of those special lockets.  The jeweler said it’d be done not long from now.”

            “Okay, then who wants what?  I’ll go order everything,” volunteered Kyri.

            We gave her our orders and she went to get in line.  I sat there with Sori and Lily and slid my hands into my windbreaker’s pockets.  While we waited, I rolled the little round thing around in my hands, rubbing it, memorizing the feel of it.  Kyri finally came back with a tray full of food.  “I got a couple extra sandwiches for the guys so they won’t get mad at us for eating without them.”

            “Good idea,” I said and grabbed my food.

***********************

            We ate as we walked.  First, we went for my locket.  I slipped it on around my neck and fingered it as we went on towards the weapon store.

            The weapon store is big enough for two stores.  And in the back, they have a little slanting hallway that leads to another building, an annex.  That other building houses the arena.  Every once in a while, they host a fight there.  And once a year, a local dojo has a big competition there.  Rusty has taken challenges often enough there that all the employees and other frequent customers know him by name.

            We got seats in the front row.  There are only seven rows, though.  Anyway, Rusty was down there in the arena, fighting a man who was quite a bit bigger than our friend.  Ben was down there, too, cheering Rusty on.  Sori called to him and caught his attention.  Rusty didn’t notice a thing.  He was completely focused on his opponent.  But Ben came up to us.  “Lessa?  You…your hair…”

            I just rolled my eyes.  “Yeah, yeah.  So, who’s our boy up against?”

            “You’ll never guess.”

            “You’re right.  I won’t.  I’m not in the mood to.”

            “Alright.  It’s Samuel Akutagawa.”

            “The headmaster of that dojo Sage is archrivals with?”

            “One and the same.”

            Lily whistled.  “Well, how ‘bout that.  Does Rusty know?”

            “Yeah.  But neither of them are letting that make a difference…or at least, that’s what they said.”

            “Oh, boy,” said Kyri and Sori.

            “You can say that again,” I said.

            “Oh, b—”

            “I didn’t mean that.”

            “Oh.”

            So we watched Rusty and Akutagawa matching each other move for move.  It seemed to me that they were equal.  Then, I noticed that Rusty had a certain look in his eyes.  The one that means he’s holding back.  I was confused.  Why would he do that?  As the fight stretched into its second hour, and the other people watching left, I became even more puzzled.  Finally, Kyri glanced at her watch.  “Crap!” she exclaimed.

            “What?”

            “We’re in trouble.  We were supposed to be home fifteen minutes ago!”

            Ben sighed.  “Great.  I think we better call off the fight.”

            “Eh…how ya gonna do that?” I asked.

            “Well, I was hoping you’d do it.”

            “Me?!”

            “Yeah.  When you talk, people tend to notice more.”

            “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

            “He’s right, though,” Sori said.  “It’s hard to ignore you.  You’re too…forceful.”

            I sighed.  “Okay, fine.  I’ll go tell ‘em.”  I walked down to the arena edge and said to Rusty’s back, “Hey, Rusty!  Time to go.”

            He didn’t hear me, of course.  Neither did Akutagawa.

            I thought for a moment, then grabbed a bucket of water that was sitting beside a folding chair on the floor.  I threw the water over the two combatants.  They were both drenched.

            I couldn’t help laughing.  The others started laughing, too.  Akutagawa was just surprised.

            Rusty was mad.  No, he was furious.

            “Eheh.  Eh…Um, gotta run!” I bolted up the aisle to the door and through the weapon shop.  Rusty was close on my tail and the others followed him.  I don’t know about Akutagawa; I was too busy running.

            By the time I reached the car out in the parking lot, I had outdistanced them all by quite a ways.  While I made myself comfortable in the car, locking the doors, they were only just coming out of the mall entrance/exit.  Rusty got to the car first.  He tried the door and then glared at me when it wouldn’t open.  “Unlock the door, Les!” he shouted at me.

            “No!” I shook my head vigorously.  “You’ll kill me!”

            “You’re right about that,” he said.  “Now, open the door!”

            I simply shook my head and turned on the radio.

            Kyri and Sori were at the car now, too.  “Hey!” whined Sori.  “The door’s locked.”

            Kyri sighed.  “Yes, Sori.  The door is locked.  Quit whining like a baby.”  She looked at me.  “Are you gonna let us in?”

            “Only if Rusty promises not to kill me.”

            “Rusty…” Ben leaned against the car, trying to catch his breath.  “Just promise her, already.”

            Rusty glared at all of them.  It’s rather funny to me to see him angry.  With that dusty red-brown hair of his, and those hazel eyes, it only makes him look handsome when he’s angry.  His eyes just crackle…Mom was right.  I do find humor in the strangest places.

            “I give up!” yelled Rusty.  “Lessa, I promise not to ki—hey…your hair…”

            “Jeez Louise!” I exclaimed, throwing my hands up.  “What is it with you people and my hair?!”

            Rusty finally promised not to kill me.  I said that if he got in the back seat, I’d let them in.  Kyri and Sori practically shoved him in there and sat on either side of him.  Lily squeezed herself in.  Ben got the passenger seat.  I drove the car out of the parking lot.

            Rusty glimpsed the clock on the dashboard.  “Man, we’re late!” he said.

            “No, duh!  Why did you think I got you all wet?”

            “To be a brat.”

            “Well, I didn’t.  And it’s not like you were really trying to beat Akutagawa, anyway.”

            Rusty looked indignant, another of his expressions that amuses me for some reason.  “So what?”

            “Nothing.”  I grinned.  “Just saying it’s not like you to hold back.”

            “Yeah, well, I did.  Subject closed.”

            The twins smirked.  Ben raised his eyebrows at me.  That did it.  I burst out laughing.

            “Hey!  Watch the road!” screamed Lily.

            I swerved the car away from the oncoming truck.  “Sorry!”

            “Liar!” the twins shouted.

            I threw a pen from the dashboard at them.

***********************

            When I opened the door to the Date house, the last thing I expected was to be picked off my feet in a hug.

            Ryo squeezed me till I gasped, “Love you, too…you’re crushing me…”

            He laughed and put me down.  “Sorry, Lessie.  I’m just happy to see you.”

            “So I noticed.”  I stepped sideways as the still-wet Rusty shoved past me.

            Ryo was looking at my hair.  “When did you do this?” he asked.

            “At the mall today.  Like it?”

            He grinned.  “Yes.  Come on into the den.  Sage and I want to talk to you.”

            “If it’s about how I’ve been acting the past couple weeks—”

            “No.  Nothing to do with that.  Come on.”  He led the way.

***********************

Two hours later, I was sitting in Ryo’s truck.  I was going to stay with him.  This arrangement was quite pleasing to me.  Out of all my uncles, I have to admit that Ryo was my favorite.  And the fact that I was his favorite added to the favorable conditions.

I’ve always liked Ryo’s place, too.  It’s a cabin up in the mountains a good three hours away from the city.  There’s a little pond beside it and there’s always some interesting wildlife hanging out there.  It’s simply a nice place.  I remember many a happy summer spent there and a couple Christmases, too.

Ryo came out of the Date house and soon we were off down the road.  Turning onto the highway that led into the mountains, he said, “So, why’d you change your hair?”

I told him about Lily.  He laughed.  “She’s always been rather rebellious.  She used to say all the time that it was silly of her parents to name her Lily when she’s so dark.”

“She’s not that dark.  Just really tan.”

“Anyway, she said once that she ought to die her hair white if only to give her name a bit more meaning.”

“Hmph.  But then when I asked her ‘why white?’, she said ‘blue?’.  And I felt different.  I just wanted to look more like Dad…Maybe it had something to do with this.”  I pulled the little round thing out of my pocket.

Ryo jumped.

It was the Tenku orb.  When we’d been at the movies, I’d felt something in my pocket.  I had known right away what it was.  But that time, instead of hating it, I’d been comforted by its presence.  It was almost like having Dad there with me.  And I felt so right.  I felt like…like I was part of something.  That I wasn’t alone.  It was a good feeling.

“Lessa…do you know what that is?”

“Of course.  How could I not know what something so close to my soul is?  Ryo, you know that all of us kids, except Tess and Rinfi, know about the yoroi.  You guys always made it a point to tell us when we were old enough to understand.  And Dad explained to me once about how the yoroi chooses its bearers.  He’s gone now…So, it needed a new bearer.  It chose me.  I’ve accepted it.”

Ryo glanced at the orb, then at me.  “You sure?”

I sighed, exasperated.  “Yes.”

“Then we’re going to have to get to work.”

“Huh?”

“If you’re going to use Tenku, you have to start training.”

“Wait a second here!  Who said anything about using it?”

“He didn’t tell you?” Ryo looked just as surprised as I felt.

“Tell me what?”

Ryo glared at the road before us.  “Open the glovebox,” he said.  “Those letters from your parents are in there.”

I took the letters out and shrugged.  “What do these have to do with it?”

“There’s another paper in the glovebox.  See it?”

“Yeah.”

“Read it.”

I read the paper.  It was the key to a code.  “What is this?” I asked.

“It’s a code your father made for us to use back in high school.  Now, use that code on your father’s letter.”

“Oookaaayyy.” When I was through rereading the letter, I had to think for a bit.  The information in that letter was somewhat overwhelming.

Dad was warning us.  The yoroi, he wrote, would only go to a new bearer in the incident of a former one’s demise, if it were about to be needed.  And since Tenku had come to me…trouble was on the way.

“But…”

“Lessa, it’s okay.  Everything’ll be fine,” soothed Ryo.

I calmed down.  Ryo always had that affect on me.  Mom told me once that when I was a baby and it seemed there was no way to make me stop crying, Ryo had me asleep in five minutes.  I think Ryo saw me as his daughter, too, in a way, since he had no children of his own.  I’ll never understand, though, why he never made that…connection with my cousins.

“So, I guess I should start training…What about the others, though?”

“We already discussed it.  The guys are going to talk to Rusty and the twins and Ben and Lily about it.  We decided that it was very unlikely that Kongo would choose Tess or Rinfi as a bearer.”

I had to agree with that.  The little girls were too young for the yoroi.  “What do you think the trouble is?”

Ryo shook his head.  “Don’t know.  We have no idea how your dad even knew all this stuff.  Do you know why the guys and I came to America in the first place?”

“Yeah.  Dad said it was because you just sensed that you should.”

“Right.  Well, this is probably why.  Our yoroi make us a little more perceptive to some things.  Think about it, though.  If we hadn’t come to America, your father would probably never have met your mother and you wouldn’t be here.”

“And Uncle Sage wouldn’t have met Maya.  But Cye met Tachiku in Japan.  And Kento and Judah met each other in Egypt, when he went on that architectural trip.”

“True.  But Cye had already known Tachiku for years.  And Kento wouldn’t have become so well known in the architecture world if he hadn’t built that house for that man in New York; he never would have gone to Egypt.  So, you see, the yoroi sent us to America for a reason.  It’s strange about things like that.  It must’ve known that here was the place where the next bearers would come from.”

“I suppose so.”  There was one more thing still bothering me, though…  “But what about Rekka?”

Ryo smiled.  “That’s another thing we discussed today.  Either I’ll be keeping Rekka through the next war, the new bearer won’t be related to me, or one of you kids will have to handle two yoroi.”

I was shocked.  “No.  That wouldn’t happen.”

He laughed.  “Ah, but you don’t know about the warlords.”

Blank.  “Okay, you got me.”

“You’ve heard a few stories about the Demon Wars.  But we never explained about the entire thing.  You see, there were other yoroi besides ours.”

He told me about Cale, Sekhmet, Anubis, Dais, and Kayura.

“And Anubis’s yoroi went to Kayura.  Her own yoroi vanished and since then, she’s only used Anubis’s.  But she said that she can still feel hers inside her, waiting.  She bears two yoroi.”

“But she was different.  She was an Ancient,” I pointed out.

“That doesn’t matter.  A soul is just a soul once you get down to it and both yoroi wouldn’t have bonded with her soul just because of all that other power.  The same thing could happen to any one of us.”

I finally decided that there were some things that I should just not bother arguing about.  “Okay,” I said.  “So I start training when?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

I tried my best to look terribly disappointed and unhappy with that idea.  “Morning?”

“Yep.  No sleeping in for you.”

“Oh.  Well, in that case, I’m gonna start sleeping right now.  G’night, Ryo.”  I curled up in the seat and basically just “shut down”, as Dad used to put it.

“Night, Lessie.”