In the main cavern the Daughters of Aku used for training, Ashi looked up to her mother. "How much longer, Mother? When will be ready to start our mission?"

The statuesque woman looked down at her child, her voice filled with pride. "Very soon. On Night's Rise, you will undergo the final…" She stopped speaking as another woman ran in.

"We're under attack!" the woman yelled, then a deep thud made the notification redundant. "Quickly, High Priestess! Sound the alarm!" The High Priestess nodded sharply, and she, her children, their current trainer, the messenger and the brutish giant woman who served as enforcer dashed for the Hall of Worship, where the brute grabbed up the great hammer and struck the temple's great gong as quickly as she could, calling the faithful to drop everything and gather in the Hall of Worship, even the sentries.

It was only a matter of minutes before the entire congregation stood in the Hall, and the High Priestess turned to the sentries. "Report!"

"High Priestess, a force of people on vehicles bombards the mountain," one said. "The vehicles have four wheels and large guns, are about shoulder tall on us and perhaps three times that wide, they are painted to blend with the forest, and our arrows did not hurt them. We can say no more."

The High Priestess nodded once, sharply. "Everyone, to your posts! My Daughters, your final test is cancelled! This is now your final test, sortie and destroy these intruders, take whatever weapons you will!"

The seven nodded sharply, spun on their heels, and ran first for the armoury where they gathered and stowed bows, arrows, slings and bullets and their individual favoured weapons, then for the main entrance, running out through the carven mouth of Aku and across the bridge. Aji wondered briefly why the attackers hadn't bombarded the bridge; the scars on the mountainside were obvious. But it didn't matter now, what mattered was stopping this attack!

How dare they! Adi thought. How dare they attack the Temple of Aku! Heretics, blasphemers, minions of the Samurai! She loaded a bullet into her sling and snapped off a shot at nearly two hundred metres, starring a windshield. Ashi made a quick gesture, and she and the others did the same, peppering the windshields with cracks and stars. The vehicles spun, and as they withdrew, the Daughters followed, gaining ground slowly and continuing to hurl bullets, damaging and denting the retreating vehicles, then suddenly the vehicles gained speed, leaving them hopelessly behind.

Ashi spun on her heel, "Back to the temple!" and ran as fast as she could, her sisters at her heels. Then a mighty thud shook them to the bones, and they managed to pick up the pace slightly more. At the bridge, they stopped and stared, horrified. The bridge was gone, rubble at the bottom of the chasm, more rubble beyond the carven mouth, and they ran around to the tiny back gate. It was gone, nothing but rubble beyond.

"Mother…" Ami whimpered, and the girls fell to their knees, sobbing silently for a few moments before ingrained stoicism reasserted itself. They stood slowly, and Ashi wiped her tears away. The others did the same, and turned to face her.

Ashi's face, still tear-streaked and wide-eyed, hardened slightly. "Mother raised and trained us for one purpose: to kill the Samurai. That's still our purpose. But first, we need to find food, shelter, and water."

.oO()Oo.

A few moments' consultation with Aji and Ari, and Ashi led the group down the trail, such as it was, from the Temple's ruined entrance. They knew little of the greater world, but they did know that the sisters had things they didn't make themselves, and those had to come from somewhere. So they followed the path to where it reached a broader path, one covered with grey stone and white lines. As they walked the broad path, the early sun on their backs, they spread out, all looking in all directions as they travelled, until Avi called out, and pointed to a distant mass, just visible past the trees. They all looked over, and Ashi nodded. The girls cleared the path just in time for a strange object, a vehicle, to come around a bend and sweep through the space they'd been occupying. Ami shuddered at the close call.

Not too long after, they found the great structure Avi had glimpsed first. Tall, conical structures, long, low walls and corridors, steps flanked with carving of bizarre creatures that stood on their arms and legs, despite having no apparent hands or feet, just stumps. Their faces held ridiculously long noses that curled up near the ends, and tusks like their Lord Father's yet not like His. They had strange garments on their backs and foreheads, and some sort of structure as well, and not even Ari or Aji could make any sense of them. They quickly went inside, and found a chamber they liked, a round, windowless space faintly and indirectly illuminated from the entryway. Ari smiled faintly. "This will be a good place to stay while we seek the Samurai. If we can find a water source, and food, and materials for fire."

The others nodded, Aji already turning over possibilities in her head. "I think this was once a temple. The decorative work on the structures outside, like Aku's antlers. The strange animals, probably His minions. The general darkness. We need to find the Hall of Worship, and perform proper ceremonies to cleanse and consecrate it."

The rest nodded sharply. "We will," Ashi agreed, "once we find water and food. We'll spread out, and when one of us finds a source, that one will howl. If one of us finds the Hall of Worship, that one will sound the horn." And with that, the seven spread out quickly, the darkness no hindrance to the cave-raised girls.

The sun was sinking when Adi sounded and Avi howled. Adi considered a moment, then stopped sounding her trumpet-like call and ran for the howl, finding Avi in a chamber than seemed to have once been a kitchen. The pageboy-haired girl smiled brightly. "I found water! she exulted and worked the handle of a small pump. "And look here," she said after opening a little door in the wall. "Cups! Seven of them!" The cups were weird in the extreme, carved in the likeness of creatures inconceivable, fangs and eyes and manes and mouths like something from the deepest depth of nightmares, but that was secondary to the girls' growing thirst. Two cups each, they drank quickly, then horn-haired Ami looked through the kitchen's other door. "Look, sisters! Sleeping spaces!"

The others looked out, and smiled at the sight. Smooth, stone floors, narrow, raised bunks, and larger, higher platforms. How wonderful! The little biting creatures could not reach those. And a hearth! Oh, this just kept getting better. Sleeping spaces, water, a place for a fire, all they needed now was a place to worship. And with that thought, Ashi turned to Adi. "Where is the Hall?" she demanded, but not unkindly, and Adi quickly led them back to it.

The girls looked around. Dark stone, fire-holders, a large smooth floor, an idol with a fire bowl, it was so perfect it almost hurt. Then Ami began to sob. "No… it's all wrong…" and Adi's face fell as she truly examined the idol. How had she been so blind? This was not Aku, it was some weird, fat, flabby thing. Yes, it had large, bulging eyes, yes, it had fangs, but that was all it shared with Aku.

"It doesn't matter. We can carve a new idol," Adi said firmly. "We'll pray to that, not to the thing with the bowl. Perhaps when our mission is done, we can carve the fat thing into a proper likeness of Lord Aku."

Ami looked over to her. "Truly? We can… oh, Adi, that's wonderful!" she cried with a sudden smile.

Ari smiled as well. "If you say it's all right, that's enough for me."

Noticing the light was nearly gone, Ashi hurried to the nearest window, and looked out to the mountains. She exclaimed softly, then called her sisters to share the sight. "Mother told of the great light Sun, and of sunset as the time of prayer, but she never said it was so beautiful…" They watched, entranced, as the many hues slowly moved across the sky, and just before the last light went away, they prostrated themselves and prayed to their benevolent Father.

.oO()Oo.

Their prayers done, the girls left the temple in different directions. Mother had said that when they went on their mission, they would be given food and water for the duration, and so would not need to learn how to find it. But now, they did, and so each girl wandered the forest, hoping to find something, however small, to help fill their bellies.

Each in a different direction, the sisters sought, for what they did not know, following traces their keen eyes alone could find or searching among strange growths for foods they recognized. As the lesser light they remembered being called Moon finally rose, they individually chose to return, seeking the water room and setting their finds upon the counter. But even for them, the light was too faint to identify the possible food, and Avi went back out, then returned with an uprooted tree, taller than herself, which they stripped of its branches, laying most of it into the hearth in the sleeping room. Ashi dredged up her recollections of the annual fire-lighting ceremony, and working from that, improvised a fire-drill and plank from broken bits of trunk, and soon, the fire was going well enough to see by, and they examined their finds. Nuts, berries, mushrooms, and a strange carcass from a furry creature roughly half their size, with a head that seemed far too small, they went over all of them, leaning heavily on Ari's memories to determine which were good. On sticks carved from the tree's branches, they placed bits of carcass near the fire, and broke nuts and sampled berries and the shelf fungus Avi had gathered.

After a long interval, their bellies full at long last, the girls sat before the fire, knees drawn up, and Adi slid toward Ari, leaning softly against her. "Mother's not here. She won't be…" and she started to cry again, repeating "I'm sorry." Ari hesitantly put her arm around her sister, and one by one, the others all moved to huddle together before the fire.

"We'll toss the shells and the leaves and all that in the fire, throw out the rest, then tonight, we sleep before the fire," Ashi said. "We'll move two, no, three, of the high benches over to here," and they rose to do so, then with the high benches placed in an arc before the fire, laid themselves upon them, feet toward the fire, and slowly, without intent, drew toward each other, for the first time they could remember holding each other close, enjoying each other's warmth and touch.