Where There's Fire....

 "Not bad work out there today, lads." Lachlan smiled over his shoulder.

"And yet you could be better." Hirano breezed past with a smirk. "When are you planning to achieve Spirit-state, Buronnewan?"

Ah, he could still be a bastard. Knife sharpens knife. A hint of teeth entered his smile with a wink. "Don't think I need to in order to win. Your head came off well enough after a few hits."

"And your Samurai came down after one." Star-pupil headed into the breakroom with Raido and Tenne, Umiko in the infirmary for a check-up after nearly pulling an overload in an attempt to get one over on Ariake.

"Better than paying a visit to nurse-san," he said. "Give Umiko-san my sympathies when you see her. That woman could order milk to un-curdle."

"Oh I will."

"And she'll tell you to stab yourself," Ariake muttered.

"It's her way of being friendly." He turned to raise an eyebrow at his team. Now that the weather had turned for autumn, not every spare minute needed dedicating to showers. "Game of ping-pong before lunch?"

Drake shrugged, Eden giving a resigned sigh that had both his eyebrows rising expectantly, and Ariake groaned. "I have other things I need to do—"

"No excuse if it's related to training." Lachlan slung an arm around his shoulders and pulled him into the breakroom, the lad only briefly digging his heels in. "Fifteen minutes' break is for watching our table champions face off."

"If you insist on losing, gaijin...."

"See? Even Eddy's getting into it." He picked up the paddles from the table and tossed one to Ariake, flicking the ball up in the air. "First to five."

Tenne and Hirano chatted quietly in the corner by the water cooler, Raido flopped on the couch watching the TV. The other teams were still out, so they had the place to themselves.

After thoroughly beating Ariake and in turn getting beaten by Eden, Lachlan rested back against the couch, smirking at the sore loser. "I think you need more training with the paddle than the sword, hawk-san."

Ariake flicked the last of a cup of water at him in return, and he laughed, looking idly over his shoulder at the TV screen as the news came up.

"...Breaking, oni attack on the east coast of Akitsushima—"

"A real oni attack?" He turned fully, leaning on his arms. "It's been a while. They catch most of them before they hit land, usually."

"These must've come in under the sea," Raido said, leaning forward and watching intently. "It's hard to detect them when they do that, sometimes."

"—in the region of Shinkai, threatening local townships—"

"Shinkai?" He muttered, an uneasy feeling slowly rising in the pit of his stomach. That was near the village.

"What, have you never seen a skirmish before?" Ariake joined him, frowning at the screen.

"No, I saw a fight once, out fishing," he said absently as the picture changed to a shaky helicopter view of low mountains. "Mostly just flashes way out at sea. I thought it was fighter planes at the time. Didn't think you actually used glimmer-robots back then."

Those hills looked awfully familiar.... He caught sight of a train line to the side of the smoke in a hazy sky just as a beam flashed, and the uneasy feeling started a slow twist in his gut, thumb digging around a fold in his sleeve. If that rail headed north towards the helicopter....

Zoom in, he silently prompted as a reporter chattered on in the background. Zoom in.

It did, the swaying image grainy and hard to read, a glowing Samurai close to Spirit-state hovering above the unmistakeable shape of a very familiar bay.

He forgot to breathe.

"—Roku?" Ariake's poke twitched away from him as he shot up, a vice taking hold of his ribs.

"Where's Kyubi-sama?" Stares met him, and his hands clenched into fists. "She'll be in the control room, won't she?"

Nothing but stares. He fought the urge to shake someone by the lapels and ran out of the breakroom before they could answer, dashing through the dinner hall and into the corridor, up the stairs to the off-limits area above the training room. Dammit dammit. His heart pounded furiously at the back of his throat, his palm slamming the door open.

Blinking lights and startled faces blurred around a familiar tall kami.

"The oni are attacking Shinkai," he snapped. "I need your permission to mobilise my team."

Her head tilted as she took him in, and one of the technicians cleared his throat. "You shouldn't—"

Kyubi-sama held up her hand, cutting him off before his face could meet Lachlan's trembling fist. "I'm aware. There's already a trained Samurai team handling the situation, what makes you think you should be out there?"

He almost physically forced back visions of black suits stalking through screaming crowds, and pulled himself to attention. "They might need backup, ma'am. We're approaching the end of our training—we can handle a real experience."

"Really." One perfect eyebrow arched, and he could've screamed. "These are real oni, Roku-chan, and real people are at risk. Are you certain you're calm enough, focused enough, to keep them safe?"

He didn't look away. "Absolutely, ma'am."

She held his gaze long enough for the pounding of his heart to drown out soft beeps and quiet breaths, before turning away with a thoughtful hum. "I do think it could be a good experience. Team Sakura is good enough to keep an eye on a few cadets as well as a pack of oni." She pressed a button, speaking into a microphone. "Teams Seven and Twelve, cease exercise. Assemble back at the hangar, I'll be giving you details on a new assignment on the way."

The vice around his chest eased, just slightly, and he let out a silent breath. "Thank you ma'am."

"You'd best get down there too." The smile she gave him didn't reach her eyes. "Time is of the essence."

_________________

She directed them to a "rebound gate", something he would've been more interested in under different circumstances, but didn't catch much of her lecture on. Not with images of smoke twining into ghosts of red floors beating in the back of his skull to the flex of his hands on worn grips.

They'll be okay. He exhaled a deep breath, the sound echoing strangely as he lead team Sixteen after One through the red torii, barely noticing them vanish one by one. They're smart. They would've run.

Visions of screaming, running crowds casually mowed down wherever they turned, herded into terrified groups and incinerated by blasts of light mocked him, and he gritted his teeth. "It's not the same."

"Lachlan?"

"Team Sixteen, heading off," he announced, clipped and professional, stepping through the gate and pretending he hadn't heard Drake, who'd heard him talking to himself. They didn't need to start doubting his sanity right before their first real encounter with what they'd been training all these months to fight.

The grassy plain around him vanished, replaced by a forest quietly turning the shades of autumn, and he nearly stumbled as the slope of a mountain met him, a haze of light rain pattering against his Samurai.

So that's what a rebound feels like. Not much. He stepped away from the exit zone, vaguely sensing One already above, and turned to see the bay stretching out below as his team joined him.

A haze of smoke and fog met him, his enhanced vision focusing on the unrecognisable shambles of a little fishing village, monstrous figures charging down its main street, chasing tiny people. Flames licked at the edges of a scorched furrow in the dirt.

Something cold took hold of his insides, coiling at the back of his throat.

"Welcome, Samurai cadets, to your baptism of fire."