7th Moon
Chapter 17

Hidariude, Keisei and Kichiku rested on the trip until they arrived at Seventh Moon, they knew they would need their energy for this mission. As they got close, they could sense Douji’s presence and they were all awake. They docked, landing the jet inside an empty hangar on the edge of Seventh Moon. When they did, the dock automatically recognized the jet and extended a conduit to allow them to disembark.

The espers entered the station expecting to be greeted by security guards, either genetically engineered soldiers on duty rotation or robots such as slashers. To their surprise there were no such security measures. The corridors were completely empty. Not one person seemed to be anywhere around.

As the espers continued to follow Douji’s energy through the corridors they began to find broken robots with their parts strewn across the ground. Even worse, they saw the soldiers and other Seventh Moon personnel in rooms along the way, but none of them were alive. Something terrible had happened and it seemed everybody was dead. If it weren’t for Douji’s life force still going strong, they would be afraid that he had been one of the victims. Every time they noticed a soldier they remembered what they had been told about the demons and said a prayer for the soul to find peace so that the body would not be reanimated. They weren’t sure if it was helping, but it was all they could think of to do.

“One hundred and three.” Hidariude had been counting the bodies of the soldiers as they prayed for them. “If we count the New Wave Elite we defeated on Earth, that’s one hundred and three demonic soldiers accounted for. That leaves Baz, Aka, Hime and two others unaccounted for.”

Just moments after Hidariude finished speaking they found the lab where Douji was being kept. There were three guards, Seichei, Baz and Aka. Baz and Aka were sitting on the ground while Seichei stood at attention. Douji and Hime were inside tubes suspended in fluids intended to suppress their powers. Hidariude drew his sword and extended his cyber blade, Keisei pulled out her fans, and Kichiku balled up his fists preparing for a fight, and entered the room.

None of the three soldiers moved. “Really, you’re going to fight us?” Aka said listlessly.

The espers could sense that the three were not up for a battle right now. The espers did not drop their defenses, but Hidariude could not help taking this moment to ask the big question. “What happened here?”

Seichei answered the question. “Ever since the robot support units were implemented, there has been tension among the genetically engineered soldiers who feared they were going to be replaced. We noticed tension rising when we were last here to train a group of soldiers to work with robots to hunt you down. Those soldiers didn’t want to work with robots and were clearly not too comfortable with us. Even Baz and Aka, being cyborgs, seemed to irritate them. We left about a week ago to resume our task of tracking you down ourselves when other soldiers were coming in for training and home security duty. None of them seemed to be comfortable with the growing numbers of robots that were being manufactured to back them up. It seems that this was a matter of pride that the soldiers found unforgivable and they finally decided to destroy the factory. However, the robots were programmed to recognize such violent threats as treason and retaliate. As the soldiers fought for their lives, the robots came to be perceived as a threat and more soldiers were recalled, each of them being dragged into the war as well. It wasn’t long before every single soldier ended up here, excluding of course the ones who were assigned to deal with you as you quickly dispatched them on Earth. All of the civilian personnel got caught in the crossfire during the war between the soldiers and the robots, so now everybody is dead. It would seem we are all that is left.”

“So now what are you going to do?” Hidariude asked.

Seichei coldly answered. “We have only been given orders to bring Douji here and to guard him and Hime until they have recovered. So we here we wait.”

“Really?” Hidariude asked. “What if they do not recover? What if no one comes to help? You’ll just stay here forever?”

“Where else do we have to go?” Seichei replied.

“Besides Han isn’t dead.” Aka added. “He’ll come get us and we’ll figure out what to do next then.”

The espers were surprised. “Han survived this all somehow?”

“Yeah, we last saw him over a week ago just before he went in for some sort of operation and he’s been recovering in his quarters ever since.” Aka answered off-handedly, sounding bored. Suddenly he seemed to snap out of his funk. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.” Aka sprang into action running across the room to try to stop the espers from escaping. Baz and Seichei followed him to assist.

Despite Aka’s assumption that they would leave to go after Han, the espers had no intention of leaving Douji. Kichiku charged forward to get to Douji, punching Aka with both hands when he got in the way. Aka blocked while transforming into his larger form to counter Kichiku’s muscles. Baz tried to assist Aka, but Keisei interrupted by blocking her with her fans. Seichei quickly calculated that he must engage Hidariude to prevent him from assisting his allies and attacking Baz and Aka so he extended his cyber blades and threw himself into the fray.

Hidariude, Keisei and Kichiku did not want to risk harming Douji so they refrained from using their psychic powers and kept to simple hand-to-hand combat. Seichei and Hidariude began dueling with blade against blade as they had so many times before. Keisei was kicking Baz and defending with her fans. Kichiku and Aka were grappling, neither seeming to make any progress in their battle. All three pairs just seemed to be locked in a struggle of equal powers.

At the height of their sparring, Douji sensed that once again his friends were in trouble and struggled to break free of his container to help them. At the same time, Hime was resonating with Douji and her power began to surge as well. Both children began to glow, their light filling the containers so that they looked like lamps. Finally the surge of energy caused the capsules to explode releasing the two dragon children. The explosion was so forceful that the walls were blown apart and each pair of combatants was cast off into different directions.

When the light from the explosion subsided, each pair of combatants found themselves greatly separated from the others in the station. For a moment the espers each considered trying to reach each other again, but their respective opponents did not give them time to consider this option. This was the time to settle their rivalries. Separated from each other there was nothing to get in their way, none of them could rely on their allies and they did not have to worry about their friends getting hurt. It was time to pull out every trick they had and go all the way.

In the residential quarters, Seichei proceeded to attack Hidariude as if nothing had happened, hoping that his opponent did not recover as quickly. Hidariude brandished his blades and parried Seichei’s attack. It seemed far too familiar, they had fought this battle too many times. Even without his ESP, he could predict Seichei’s every move simply by remembering what he had done the last time. Similarly, Seichei could also predict Hidariude’s actions since he was purposely fighting with a style that limited Hidariude’s options. He kept his blades very close together to protect himself, preventing Hidariude from striking any vital parts. When Hidariude tried to maneuver around Seichei’s blades to attack him from outside his protective shield, Seichei would follow with his defenses. Seichei was an impossible opponent because he was programmed to mirror Hidariude and there was no way to win using traditional techniques. Hidariude realized he only had one option; he pulled back, crossed his blades and unleashed an electric attack at Seichei.

Seichei dodged the attack, which was not a surprise in itself. What did surprise Hidariude was that he could actually detect fear. He had never seen Seichei express fear before, or any other emotion for that matter. He was a robot, programmed to function without emotion, to sacrifice himself if need be. But for a brief moment, in spite of his complete lack of emotion, Seichei actually showed fear on his face and exuded enough fear for Hidariude to sense it. As Hidariude realized this surprising anomaly of emotion, he also realized a mistake he had made that made this even more interesting; Seichei was immune to his electric attacks. The first time they had ever fought, Seichei simply absorbed the electrical attack, and now he was mortally afraid of it. Suddenly Hidariude remembered something else, Keisei had all but destroyed Seichei in that encounter and Baz and Aka had been beaten almost to death twice over. How did they survive?

“Transform Seichei.” Hidariude challenged his opponent.

“What?” Seichei replied.

“The first time we met you transformed into a mass of metal blades.” Hidariude began to explain. “Since then you have not transformed. Now that I am using my electrokinesis, you should level the playing field by transforming and using a power that I do not have.”

Seichei stood without making a move. His hesitation was all the answer Hidariude needed.

“You can’t transform can you?” Hidariude taunted Seichei. “Keisei broke you in that first battle. The only reason that you came back from that was that your body is one hundred years old, my guess is that particular day was the magic day. That day you received a soul, Tsukomogami.”

Seichei attacked Hidariude in a fit of rage.

Hidariude blocked calmly. “I’m right aren’t I? That’s why you’re afraid of my lightning blade. Just as I am the reincarnation of Okazaki Kyutsume, you are my rival from eight hundred years ago, Tsukomogami, the ninth claw of Kyutsume and leader of the one hundred and eight yokai.”

“If it satisfies you, yes, you are right.” Seichei responded. “Our souls have waged war for centuries across worlds, from the heavens of Togenkyo to the deepest hell of Jigoku. Indeed it began in Japan between the torn bodies of Okazaki Kyutsume. But the war ends here, the cycle of life, death and rebirth has brought us back to this plane of existence, let us finish this battle once and for all!”

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the Seventh Moon, Keisei was preparing for her confrontation with Baz. Their arena was fitting, the harem chamber. This was a place they knew all too well, and was known only to the girls and the men who took them from this place when they needed them. The chamber was made of gold, studded with jewels and draped in velvet, though not for the girls’ pleasure, only ambiance for the men. Behind the velvet drapes were chains that held the girls to the wall, making sure they knew no freedom. Baz taunted Keisei. “It seems that fate has brought us here to face our beginnings and bring an end to it once and for all.” As the two girls looked each other in the eye, they each saw the personification of their past and all the troubles that went with it. Today they would end their sorrows and their rivalry.

Keisei held her fans in a defensive stance, preparing for Baz’s first attack. Baz opened her hands and shot a blast of fire at Keisei. Keisei redirected the fire away focusing her pyrokinesis through her fans. This created an opening for Baz which she used to kick Keisei in the head. Keisei was ashamed of herself for allowing this attack, but there was little she could do about it, there was simply no way to defend against both attacks at the same time. Keisei could only counter-attack by rolling with Baz’s kick and using the momentum to launch a kick back at her. Now they were even with one blow each and at close range, too close for fire blasts, it was hand to hand combat now. Keisei felt more confident about close range combat because she felt she had developed more skill at this than Baz had. The trick was to keep her close and not let her get far enough away that she could use her hand cannons.

Baz knew Keisei was a superior fighter and kept trying to back away, but Keisei wouldn’t let her get away. Finally Keisei had Baz backed up against the wall with fans crossed against her throat. “Are you ready to give up now?”

“I’m not even your enemy Keisei.” Baz replied. “We’re just a couple of slave girls. We grew up here together. We’re like sisters.”

“Then why have you been hunting me and my family?” Keisei demanded.

“Because I was following orders and I did not understand what I was being asked to do.” Baz answered. “I don’t even know what I’m fighting for anymore.” As a tear dropped from Baz’s eye, Keisei actually felt sorry enough for her that she began to drop her fans. In a second, Baz’s expression changed. “Oh that’s right I remember now, I’m fighting for my life.” Baz kicked Keisei then pushed herself off the wall in a somersault over Keisei’s head. She continued to roll away from Keisei, stood up ran a few steps and turned back to face Keisei. Keisei raised her fans again ad this time Baz blasted her with her ice and froze her fans. Baz punched the fans shattering them. “Let’s see you defend against this!” Baz taunted Keisei while preparing another blast of ice, but her system malfunctioned and nothing came out. The freezing mechanism hadn’t been repaired properly after all and it was no longer an option. In this moment of hesitation, Keisei struck back and regained the upper hand.

Keisei kept up with her furious flurry of punches and kicks, though Baz began to block and finally countered by grabbing a hold of Keisei and throwing her by her own momentum behind herself. “You say you are fighting for your life, but what plans do you have after you have defeated me?” Keisei asked Baz. “Do you expect Seichei, Aka and Hime to defeat Hidariude Kichiku and Douji? And if they do, what is next? You can’t expect to return to your old life here on Seventh Moon, there is no life left here.”

“Han Toromi will have a plan, he will rebuild, he will find a way.” Baz protested.

“We will put an end to him too.” Keisei returned. “His days of tyranny over us and all of the rest of the world are over.”

“No, you can’t!” Baz screamed. “I love him!”

Keisei was shocked, she couldn’t believe this. “I guess you were wrong before when you said we weren’t enemies. I can’t imagine why you would want to be with that man after all that he has done to us, but if you insist on siding with him then we are enemies.”

“Han Toromi will rule!” Baz retaliated. “Seventh Moon will rise again and I will be his right hand! If you must fall for that to happen, then so be it!”

Keisei drew two paper bombs one for each hand and began her incantation. “Kayakujutsu…” At this same moment, Baz put her hands out to release afire blast from her hands. Her freezing system failed, but the flamethrower system was still working fine. “Ignite!” Keisei released her fire at the same instant as Baz did. Their flames met exactly halfway between them. Now it was a matter of which would hold out longer, Baz’s flamethrowers or Keisei’s pyrokinesis.

Kichiku found himself in a training room with Aka. Aka decided to try getting the jump on Kichiku by retracting his cybernetic over-muscles and tried to use his smaller form’s higher speed to get the first strike before Kichiku could regain his senses. Kichiku did manage to regain his senses faster than Aka had hoped and blocked the attack. Aka rebounded, picked up some speed and came around for another attack. Again Kichiku blocked the attack. Aka continued with his speed, punching Kichiku repeatedly, and Kichiku blocked every strike effortlessly. After a while, Aka’s punches slowed down but the force increased as he transformed into his larger form with more muscle. Kichiku could still block these attacks and with Aka’s speed being reduced, he was finally able to find an opening and hit him back. As Kichiku threw his first punch, Aka retracted his muscles again so he could use his smaller size and higher speed to evade Kichiku.

“I’m impressed with your fighting style Aka.” Kichiku said to his rival. “I see you have learned to use your both your strength and your speed alternately.”

“It took me a while to get the hang of it.” Aka replied. “Thanks for noticing.” He then resumed attacking Kichiku.

Kichiku resumed blocking and countering with such little effort that he could still carry on the conversation. “However I have noticed that you still have one weakness.”

Aka snickered. “And what weakness would that be?”

“You have impressive speed in your natural form that allows you to evade me while striking quickly. In your cybernetically enhanced form, you have enough strength to be my equal.” At this moment Aka pumped up his cyber muscles as if on cue. Kichiku countered the transformation by striking him with his palm at the precise moment Aka was in mid-transformation. “However since you must switch between the two states, you leave yourself vulnerable during the transformation. The burden of your cybernetics slows you down but until they are fully extended you can’t use your full strength.”

Aka caught his breath while he tried to force his transformation to complete. Kichiku used this moment to punch the ground and split it beneath Aka. Aka fell in and Kichiku clapped his hands together, closing the fissure around him. “It is over, surrender.”

“Not a chance.” Aka pushed back on the crevice walls to free himself. He couldn’t quite get free at first, so he shrank himself back down to his smaller form and squeezed out, throwing himself into the air and performed a back flip, landing on the ground in front of Kichiku. At the same time he transformed back to his muscular form and grabbed a hold of Kichiku before he could make another move. Kichiku started grappling with Aka and they found themselves locked in a struggle of strength. Now it was time to prove whether Aka’s cybernetics were truly a match for Kichiku’s natural muscle.

Douji and Hime were still in the lab. Hime was in such bad shape she looked like she had already lost. Having developed psychic abilities without the sense to control them and repeatedly turning into a dragon had taken its toll on her. Her skin was discolored, her hair was stringy and her eyes were sagging. And yet, despite how worn her body was, she continued to exude an immense amount of energy. Somehow since Douji had defeated her a few weeks ago, she had become so unstable, she had actually become radioactive. She had so deteriorated that she couldn’t even speak, she just growled at Douji while her mind tried to settle on some sort of attack. Finally she just threw a ball of pure energy at Douji. It was so sloppy and unfocused that it took no effort at all for Douji to avoid it.

Douji looked as healthy as ever, and under normal circumstances this would be enough for him to fight and defeat Hime with ease. Unfortunately, Douji still did not have control over his powers. At this moment he had managed to gain conscious control of his powers for the first time. With no experience using his powers, he was utterly confused, looking upon Hime in a deep purple haze through his own golden glow. He could not understand what was going on, seeing them both in this unfamiliar place.

Then it all came back to him, partly remembering what his friends had said and partly absorbing their memories psychically. As the memories flashed through his mind, he not only realized where he was, but what he was. “You’re…like me.”

Hime continued to attack Douji.

Douji dodged her attacks as if she was in slow motion, his senses and reaction time had been so enhanced by his current shintai state. “What…have they done to you? What have they done to us?”

Hime snarled again and threw more raw energy at Douji.

Douji simply slapped the energy away as if it were nothing. “I…feel sorry…for you. You have been given so much power, but you don’t understand it so you misuse it. My family…we use our powers to come together. But the way you use your powers, you drive each other apart. You are so different, you are our opposites, the yang to our yin.”

Hime still was not listening, she just grunted and reached out to hit Douji with both of her hands.

Douji took Hime’s hands in his. “You believe that if you focus on your goals you will succeed because you are not distracted by concern for the well-being of others. But what you fail to understand is that this will be your undoing. We are stronger because we fight for each other, we fight as one.”

A surge of energy came through Douji consuming Hime’s aura, finally restoring her more stable condition from before their first encounter. She suddenly looked healthy and young again, but this transformation too took its toll and she fell unconscious in Douji’s arms.

This same energy resonated in Kichiku as he overcame Aka and brought him to the ground. Aka’s cybernetics gave way under the pressure and he reverted to his original form, defeated.

At the same time, Keisei also felt the energy and overcame Baz. The flames did not burn Baz, but there was still enough force from the blast to knock her into the wall. She collapsed unconscious and out of fire, defeated.

Hidariude also felt the energy and was able to produce an electric charge through his blades strong enough to repel Seichei. Hidariude retracted his cyber blades and pointed his sword at Seichei. “Surrender, it’s over.”

An all too familiar voice came from behind Hidariude. “No, it’s not over, not yet.”

Hidariude turned from his immobilized opponent to see none other than Han Toromi.

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