• Chapter 7

    Ryu and Hidariude had manged to convince Keisei to train with them. She was picking up sword fighting quite well, a testament to how close she had paid attention to Hidariude. However she could not use Gishudo like Hidariude because she did not have his cyberarm, so she compensated with a war fan, using a series of defensive techniques to level the field. Hidariude managed to get his blade past Keisei's. Seeing an advantage he tried to strike at her from behind, but she quickly spun the sword in her hand, reversing the blade to block Hidariude. "Impressive, I'll have to remember that technique."

    As the sun set, Ryu told them to stop, "That's enough for today. You've been coming along well in just these past couple of months. I am proud of you." Both students bowed to their sensei, and he bowed back.

    As they prepared to return to the house, Hidariude saw a shadow on the horizon. "Excuse me for a moment." He ran off to check what he saw. Just as he hought there was an unusually familiar face waiting for him. "Renzokuken..."

    "Long time, no see, old friend."

    * * *


    Douji was playing in the woods as usual. He was too small to work the fields with everyone else, so he went foraging for wild fruits and vegetables and gathering firewood. He was never lonely because he liked playing with rabbits and would entertain himself with them for hours on end. Today, though, the rabbits led him to a new playmate. A little girl, about the same age as Douji, was playing in a field of flowers. Douji was caught very off guard, there wasn't supposed to be anyone within several kilometers of the mountain. The girl approached Douji and said in a typically cute and bubbly voice, "Hi! My name is Hime. What's your name?" She handed him a bouquet of wildflowers.

    Douji was wary of strangers, but he hadn't seen another child since the tragedy at the commune. She just seemed too sweet to be trouble. "My name's Douji."

    The rabbit that Douji had been chasing approached Hime. "Oh, what a cute little bunny! Is is it yours?"

    "No, I just found him." Douji changed the subject, "I don't usually see other people around here, so what are you doing here?"

    "Oh I'm just having an outing with some friends. I don't know where they've gotten off to though." She suddenly had a quizzical look on her face.

    "Would you like me to help you find them?" Douji asked her. "Oh, would you? That would be so sweet of you. I think they went that way." Hime grabbed Douji by the hand and started running off.

    * * *


    Meanwhile, back at the shrine, Keisei and Ryu returned from training to be greeted by Kichiku. "Where is Hidariude?"

    "He thought he saw something and ran off." Keisei responded, "He'll probably be back soon. I'm going to get cleaned up, dibs on the bath!"

    While Keisei went off, Ryu stayed with Kichiku and helped to prepare a meal. "Where is Douji?"

    "Oh he's out playing again. How much trouble could he get into? Maybe he'll find Hidariude."

    "Hmm..." Ryu said. He was troubled, two of his people missing at once. He was very paternal and protective, he did not like not knowing where his family was.

    The two sat down for tea, Keisei was still in her bath. Both were prone to silence, especially when they were wondering about the whereabouts of their loved ones, so there wasn't much conversation between them.

    "Keisei sure is taking her time in the bath."

    "Women."

    After what seemed like forever, Hidariude walked in. "There you are," said Kichiku, "We were wondering about you. Did you happen to see Douji?"

    "No, no sign of him. I thought he was with you."

    Ryu asked, "So, what did you find on the ridge?"

    "Oh, it was nothing, just a rabbit."

    Ryu was suspicious, something sounded wrong in Hidariude's voice, something felt wrong, but he could not put his finger on it. He went to get more tea for Hidariude.

    Just as Ryu was serving Hidariude, Keisei came out of the bathroom. "Hidariude, there you are!" she went to give him a hug. As she got close, she breathed in. She smelled him and knew something was wrong. He didn't smell like himself, he smelled like some kind of rubber, a smell he hadn't had since she first met him, before he lost the synthetic skin on his arm. She was suspicious but didn't want to let on. "What did you find on the ridge?"

    "Just a rabbit."

    "Who are you?" Keisei said as she put Hidariude in a headlock.

    "What are you doing Keisei?"

    "This isn't Hidariude! I know the man I love, and this is an imposter!"

    "And almost perfect. Too bad, we could have had some fun if you had played along." He threw Keisei against the wall. The imposter released the blades from his left arm and proceeded to attack, but before he could complete a strike, Ryu blocked with his sword.

    Kichiku body slammed into the false Hidariude and knocked him out the door. "We'll ask again, who are you?"

    "I am..." the stanger said while changing hs expression to reveal his true malice, "...the last person you will ever see!" He rose up and struck again, beginning a battle with Ryu.

    Renzokuken entered the scene with the real Hidariude in tow. "Looks like the party started without us. Everybody, come on out!"

    Two more denizens of 7th Moon appeared, Baz the bunny girl and Aka the sprinter, jumping down from the tree tops. Baz went after Keisei and Aka went after Kichiku.

    "What's going on here?" Hidariude asked Renzokuken, "Why are you doing this?"

    "It's our job," Renzokuken answered, "And I thought after all we went through you at least deserved to see your comrades in your last moments of freedom." He drew his gun and pointed it at Hidariude's head.

    "I'm not going back."

    Renzokuken laughed, "Who said anything about going back? This isn't a retrieval mission, those guys are your replacements. Our first mission is to eliminate the obsolete defects. No one can know we exist, and now you all must die."

    Hidariude turned around and knocked the gun out of Renzokuken's hand. "You never could fight in melee."

    Renzokuken put up a good fight against Hidariude, better than expected. But he wouldn't win in hand-to-hand, he need his gun back. He rolled on the ground grabbed his gun and fired. It missed Hidariude, and went straight on past his doppelganger and hit Ryu.

    Hidariude went to his master. Ryu handed his sword to Hidariude. "You are my legacy, my sons," he looked towards Keisei, "Daughter, my children, all of you. Make me proud." His eyes shifted out of focus, into space, "Sakura..."

    "Ryu Sensei? RYU!!!"

    Hidariude picked up Ryu's golden dragon sword with both hands and prepared his stance. He focused entirely on Renzokuken. "Now you die."

    He ran in to strike Renzokuken, but he was blocked by the doppelganger. "Come on, let me have my turn!" They began dueling, sword against cyberblade.

    After a few rounds, Hidariude saw an opening and tried to strike him with his own cyberblade while parrying with his sword. Unfortunately his opponent surprised him with a parry of his own.

    "Blades in both arms? What are you?"

    "Your upgrade."

    Hidariude just realized something, his last day on 7th Moon, he had destroyed his sixth training robot, and had remarked about the seventh being the one that might finally be a challenge. This fighting style...

    "I'm lucky number seven, you can call me Seichei!"

    * * *


    Baz wrestled with Keisei. Her fighting style was awful, clearly she hadn't gotten anymore than a crash course in fighting and had no idea what she was doing. She was just a distraction. As she tried to tear off Keisei's kimono, she said "Isn't this sexy?"

    Keisei quickly grew impatient with one of the girls she once considered a sister back in the Whore Pit of 7th Moon. What had been so different between them to bring them so far apart? Without wasting another thought, she headbutted Baz and knocked her over.

    * * *


    Aka was running circles around Kichiku, literally. He'd jump in with a quick jab every now and then, catching Kichiku off guard. "You big lunk, you may be stong, but all that strength doesn't do any good if you can't hit me!"

    Kichiku continued to stand stoically while Aka attacked him. It reminded him of a training exercise with insects. He remembered how he passed that test, he meditated and focused, trying to single out Aka's energy and isolate it in space.

    Several minutes of Aka's torment were brought to a screeching halt with a single, well-placed palm strike.

    "Ow." Aka muttered as he fell.

    * * *


    Keisei picked up her cherry blossom emblazoned sword and went to assist Hidariude. Kichiku, unarmed stepped in for the assist as well.

    Renzokuken got impatient and decided to cut things short by just shooting all three opponents. Surprisingly, Hidariude and Keisei were both able to deflect the bullets with their swords, and Kichiku was actually able to grab the bullet in his hand and throw it back at Renzokuken, which he managed to avoid by pure luck.

    "Enough Seichei, end this!"

    "Three on one, I guess it's time to kick it up a notch." Seichei transformed into his true form, a huge robot covered in blades. Somehow, Hidariude, Keisei, and even the unarmed Kichiku were able to keep up in the fight.

    Just now, Hime brought Douji to the scene of the battle. "Oh look, our friends are playing!"

    Douji saw Ryu's body and ran to it. "SIFU!" Douji felt an anger grow within him holding the dead body of Ryu. As he loked at his freinds fighting for their lives, he remembered that day when this all began. Douji began to glow, a palpable aura forming around him. "No, not again. No more... I WILL NOT LOSE ANYONE ELSE! THIS ENDS NOW!!" Douji body slammed into Seichei... and to everyone's surprise the tiny child hit the giant robot with enough force to knock him all the way into Renzokuken.

    "Ooh, I wanna play too!" squealed Hime and suddenly she started glowing like Douji and forced him into a fight in the sky.

    Hidariude, Keisei and Kichiku were stunned. "What the hell is going on here?"

    "The perfect children." responded Sechei, "Four years ago, we attempted an ultimate genome and the experiment yielded two individuals, a boy and a girl. The intent was that they would create the ultimate race to start the next generation. All the other biosoldiers were just created to be their guardians. Who knew it would end like this?"

    Renzokuken managed to get out from under Seichei. "Enough of this, leave them to the drones. HIME, WE'RE GOING!"

    "Already Renny?" Hime whined.

    "NOW!" Renzokuken screamed as he and Sechei grabbed Baz and Aka's limp bodies to take them back to their shuttle. At the same time, the drones moved in to give them some room for their tactical retreat.

    Hidariude, Kichiku, Douji and Keisei were surrounded. The robotic shock troops of 7th Moon had them outnumbered and even if they could get past these soldiers there were still the genetically engineered elite behind them. A war had begun and they were only four against hundreds, and they were nothing more than traitorous rogues themselves. It was hopeless, but they wouldn't go down without a fight...

    * * *


    Nine months later...

    Toromi Yoshi made an announcement on a worldwide bandwidth that could reach everyone on Earth and in all the moons. "Greetings people of Earth. My name is Toromi Yoshi and I am president and CEO of 7th Moon. You may be familiar with our products as you eat them every day. Unfortunately it has come to the point that our food supply seems to be all that is available to all of civilization. As such, it seems only logical that as the provider of all food that I deserve to be in charge of all those who recieve it. I hereby declare 7th Moon the imperial capital of civilization and myself the ruler of all the known world. If you want to eat, obey."

    One of the broadcasts was on a monitor on the broad side of a building in downtown Tokyo. Among the crowd who watched this, a tiny child's cry rang out. It came from a baby girl, a perfect baby girl except for her furry, feline left arm. Her father hushed her, "Don't worry Neko, this isn't over. We have not yet begun to fight." The cyborg, the catgirl, the brute and two small children hid the greatest secret of all...

    Hope.