I do not own Ronin Warriors/Samurai Troopers. I really wish I did. Don't we all?

Being Brave

Written by Random One-Shot

Rated T, for language

If asked, Yagyu Nasuti would not say that she is a particularly brave person. Prior to her introduction to the five Ronin Warriors, she had done absolutely nothing in her life worth mentioning as courageous. Even after meeting them, she passed off most of what she did in their company as common sense or duty. While any of the warriors, Jun and likely Byakuen as well (though he won't say anything) would disagree with her on that note, the fact remains that there are only ten times Nasuti has ever felt that she really did something that was brave.

These are the moments when she can look back and say she is proud of herself.

1) When she stole the police officer's bike.

Nasuti was what her mother called a good girl and what most of her peers called a bookworm. She didn't get into any trouble at all, not even accidently. When her jeep broke down with every other car in Tokyo, she had briefly thought about walking back to the university. The universe didn't seem to want her to go through with her grandfather's request.

However, Nasuti was a good girl and she remembered the way her grandfather had gripped her shoulders, almost painfully tight, the way he had looked at her with eyes so intense she almost felt her face burning, the way he had said 'you bring that boy right-back-here. Don't stay, don't linger. If they are showing themselves like this, the Youjakai must be close.' Even if she thought he had half-lost his mind like some people had said (and who she had snapped at for saying such things), he wanted that boy near him so much.

So she had climbed out of her car and started walking into the city. Nasuti had gotten all of two steps before she saw the bicycle just sitting there, right in her path like someone had left it for her. No one had, of course. The officer was standing on the hood of a stalled car, trying to bring some order to the chaos.

'He won't be using it,' a little, sly voice whispered in her mind.

What followed was a brief, but intense, four second inner debate on the importance of being a good girl versus the importance of being a good granddaughter.

The granddaughter bit won out.

The fact that she wouldn't be sticking around to help people and thus really did need it more than him wasn't much solace.

Nasuti could practically feel the handcuffs on her wrists as she rode away.

2) When she went to get Ryo's sword.

After witnessing the five hopes of her world returning to normal blown away like five leaves in the wind, Nasuti had been in a stupefied daze. It had been Byakuen who got Jun and her moving, his massive head gently nudging and bumping them forward. At the time, it had not seemed odd to leave things in the metaphorical hands of a twelve foot long cat. Whatever Byakuen was, he wasn't a dumb beast.

He had taken them to a large building, its base scarred by long gashes that she thought must have come from Shuten Douji's devastating attacks. When he had thrown that kusari-gama and screamed his war cry, she thought the world was going to split into pieces. Staring at the maimed sky scraper made her remember that. It made her knees go weak to remember the sheer amount of power that creature had casually thrown around and how it had taken all five of the strange boys in full armor to bring him down.

Nasuti and Jun fell into a troubled sleep beneath the shadow of the building, hidden from prying eyes and curled up against Byakuen's comforting bulk. Nasuti dreamed formless nightmares and woke up ready to scream, only Jun's presence next to her stifling the cry. The boy didn't need to be woken up like that. Immediately after that, Nasuti noticed that Byakuen was missing.

Her first thought was that the armored men had gotten to him, but she dropped it as quickly as she could. He would not have gone quietly and that would have woken her up. The second scenario was much more likely, though not more comforting – he had left to search for Ryo. She had seen the way the great cat had stayed by Ryo's side, him above all the others, and she didn't think Byakuen would be content to let the boy return on his own, if he even could. In either case, the tiger had left them alone.

It was as though every window had suddenly gained eyes. Nasuti remembered the armored monster from the day before, remembered how it had picked up Jun and her like a pair of kittens. She was no heavyweight and never had been, but it was still terrifying to remember how easily the thing – youja, her memory supplied and it sounded very much like her grandfather – had handled her and a kicking, screaming child with absolutely no problem whatsoever. If even one of them found Jun or her, there would be nothing she could do.

When Jun woke up and they both saw Ryo's sword shining in the distance, it hadn't taken much thought to decide they needed to go get it. What had taken up most of the time was trying to find a safe way to do it. The sword was lying in the middle of the street, far away from the piles of rubble and useless cars that they could have used for cover. In the end, Nasuti knew she would have to walk out into the open.

It was the most terrifying three hundred yards of her life. Even ducking into shadows and doorways as often as they could, Nasuti was still certain every shifting rock was a lunging youja, every shadow a hungry demon. The tiniest noise was enough to send Jun and her scurrying back to the nearest hiding spot. The boy had refused to stay behind in their sleeping place. He did not outright say that he felt safer with her, but he didn't have to. The way he had practically attached himself to her hip said enough.

By the time they reached Ryo's sword and she reached down to pick it up, Nasuti was certain her hair had turned entirely white. She felt as if she had aged twenty years in the past ten minutes. Then her hand curled around the blue hilt and warmth surged into her hand, through her arm, into her chest and she could feel the chill and the fear being pushed away by it.

Five minutes later and they were not horribly crushed beneath a building, Byakuen was back, they were on the move and, well, if things weren't great, Nasuti knew that they could certainly be worse.

3) When she went to distract Anubis.

It was a long, hard, wet climb up sharp rocks to get back to the snowfields and all for a purpose she really, really did not want to follow through with. Shuten Douji had thrown her into an active volcano, but Anubis was turning out to be a pretty close second to him on her People I Must Avoid list.

The whole way up to the snowfields, only half of Nasuti's mind had been on the climb (which was why most of her car's first aid kit was later to be used on her scrapes). The rest was working overtime on memory suppression.

"My sword will find his heart."

"I think I'll sharpen my claws on you first, girl."

"I like my prey to struggle."

Clang! Clang! Clang! Heavy strokes and rhythmatic ones at that, Seiji backing up the whole time and Anubis just walking forward, not a care in the world, that scary smile on his face, using those claws – on you first – to turn away a five foot sword, and when she jumped it had not been for fear of Seiji's life so much as fear of being left alone with Anubis.

When she had made it to the top, standing bright orange in a level white wasteland where anyone could see her, she drew in a deep breath of air (it wasn't the cold that was paralyzing her chest. Just the fear) and screamed for the Masho. There were no insults. She had seen Shuten Douji turn a city street to gravel and Naaza melt through rock with his venom. She didn't want this creature angry at her, just interested. Never angry.

It was mind crushingly terrifying just the same when the wind picked up out of nowhere when it had been perfectly calm before and snow reduced her field of vision to three feet in front of her. She knew it was him, knew it by the taste of the air; static and heavy with energy, something she felt every time she got within a foot of Ryo or Seiji and saturating the atmosphere whenever they called on their armor's full might. Magic.

Then there was a vague, man-shaped shadow behind her, in front of her, there, there, there, gone every time she moved her head to try and get more than a sideways glimpse of it. It might have been teleportation, could have been speed (Ryo could move faster than the wind in a fight. She had seen him blurred and formless, knocking youja away like paper dolls), but the end result was that Nasuti had gotten what she needed, even if she didn't want it. Anubis' attention was on her, though how much of it she could not say.

And then she thought, even through the fear, 'oh damn. What now?'

She had seen the power of the armor turned against her before, but there had always been someone standing between it and her. Now there was nothing, Seiji busy trying to gain control over his increased power and probably unable to hear her through the blizzard even if she broke down and screamed.

That realization did more to tear down her shoddy courage than anything else. Seiji wasn't coming. Even if she screamed, he wouldn't save her.

She was running before she realized she wanted to, her legs tearing up bursts of snow. Always, no matter which way she ran with no care for where the cliffs were, there was a looming black shadow that was just a step closer with each reappearance. Somehow, even through the wind and her thundering gasps, she could hear him laughing.

Then she tripped, slipping on a patch of hidden ice ('I am such a girl,' her inner ego shrieked). When she got back up again and turned around, there were suddenly three sharp claws right there, tearing through her jacket and sending goose down to ride away with the wild wind. He laughed and she could feel her heart stop for a moment.

'I am dead.'

But he had only gotten her jacket and when she hit the ground, snow piling into her mouth, there was no piercing pain in her back from a second strike. He was gone again when she turned around and his voice echoed through the wind, mocking her.

Then he was right behind her. Like, right behind her, so close she could feel the powerful charge of his armor's energy, could feel the coldness that radiated off of him as though he was the source of the storm. It only took a half a moment for her mind to leap down that path, lined with memories of Ryo riding a magma flow and Seiji generating enough light to outshine a star, and then she realized with a numb, horrible feeling in her gut that he was.

"I'm surprised you're still alive," Anubis said, his tone one of a man who is watching a very stupid puppy chase its tail.

You are alive. You are alive when I thought you were dead and you came seeking me. Stupid girl.

"But," he said, and she saw the way his smile got a little bit sharper, a little bit nastier. She couldn't stop staring at him, even when she knew she should be running as fast as she possibly could, for all the good it would do.

"I can fix that."

Nasuti screamed.

~*~*~*~

Seiji saved her, of course.

He found his power in time, broke her out of the frozen waterfall, thrashed Anubis black and blue, and saved Shu from his rocky prison. Proving his chivalry yet again, he carried her back to the car when it became very clear that she could not walk very far on her own after what had happened and helped her throw a snowball at Shu when he would not stop making stupid jokes about it.

In the relative safety of her own car and with the heater going full blast, Nasuti asked if they could leave her alone for a few minutes while she changed. When they were gone she shrugged out of her drenched, frozen orange jacket and through random chance it fell so that the three slashes in the fabric were face up, goose down poking through the cuts.

Fingering the ruined garment, it occurred to Nasuti that she was overdue for a nice, relaxing breakdown.

4) When she followed Jun onto Byakuen and into the vortex.

Nasuti liked the tiger well enough. He had saved her life a dozen times over and, if one were being honest, was probably more awesome than the boys in his own way. She did not, however, like riding on Byakuen at all, preferring her own jeep. It had seats, it had restraints and it had a nice piece of thick glass between her and the wind. She supposed there were children who dreamed of riding tigers at night, but if she ever met one she would have to disillusion them very quickly. It was not fun. It could be exhilarating, in that 'oh god, I think I'm about to die' way, but it was mostly a lot of fur-gripping, knee clenching, gut twisting fear. Byakuen was very fast and the hard, unforgiving pavement was only about four feet away if she took a tumble when he turned.

But all of that was nothing, was sunshine and daisies, compared to the hurt-your-eyes bright blue vortex of light he was carrying them towards.

She had known that it wouldn't be easy for the warriors to destroy Arago, but it was still a shock to her when enough explosions to qualify as a fireworks festival began lighting up the sky around the floating castle. She recognized them, having seen all of the troopers' sure kills at some point or another. It had only taken one of them to wipe out a legion of youja or send one of the Masho running, but now they were lighting up the sky again and again.

'They've found Arago,' Nasuti thought. 'What else could take that much firepower and survive?'

The dark feeling in her gut only got worse and worse when the lights and distant explosions continued, long past anything she had ever imagined. How much longer could those boys keep burning up energy like that? She had seen what those attacks did to them. The amount of energy they lost was staggering and even after the boost of ability that they had each gained from massive exposure to their elements, it was still enough to make them shake for a few minutes after they took off their heavy armor.

They needed help, that much was certain. Byakuen fit the bill, but she only had to look at the tiger once and see how he stayed within three feet of her to know that he would never leave them, even if it did mean Ryo fighting without him.

It was, of course, at that point that Jun cheerfully suggested the idea that Nasuti had squashed down when it sprang up in her mind – go with Byakuen so he didn't have to leave them.

'Yes, Nasuti. Just jump into the swirly pillar of light, fly up to the demon castle, dodge past all those nasty youja who will have sharp objects to throw at you, beat up a demon boss, grab your boys and fly back down to the city for ice cream. Yes, that's a great plan, you stupid idiot!'

The ever sensible part of Nasuti's mind pointed out that if the Samurai Troopers lost, she and Jun were dead anyway.

As she felt herself slip free from gravity's hold, only her white-knuckled grip on Byakuen's fur keeping her on his back, Nasuti decided it wasn't much comfort. It really, really wasn't.

5) When they escaped Arago's castle.

The demon emperor was in pieces behind her and if he wasn't dead (unlikely, given how much energy Ryo had enthusiastically shoved down the monster's throat) he was at the very least highly unhappy.

However, now that he was dead his castle was crumbling apart and possibly returning back to the Youjakai at the same time, if the pieces of rubble that had simply disappeared right in front of Nasuti were anything to go by. There was a chance that she, Jun and Byakuen would be safely taken to the other world right alongside them, but she didn't think it very likely. They were humans (and a tiger) and their natural place was in the Ningenkai, so unless something forcibly yanked them into the demon realm they would likely remain on Earth. At least, that was what she thought. It didn't really make any difference as to the danger, though. If she was wrong, they'd be in Arago's domain. If she was right, they'd be left free falling several thousand feet through the air before returning to Shinjuku as a messy splatter on the pavement.

Those were the facts that Nasuti's analytical mind relayed to her, all of them doing absolutely nothing to calm her gibbering terror as she and Jun clung to Byakuen's white fur while he carried them into the god damned vortex again and they started descending toward the very hard looking ground far, far below.

Headfirst.

6) When she followed Shuten Douji after Ryo and Touma had departed for the Youjakai.

The two remaining warriors were gone, leaving Nasuti and Jun behind to try and save the three who had been captured. Even Byakuen, who had done more to keep them safe than any trooper, had gone with them. When the lights died down and the massive gate disappeared, she and Jun were left alone with a man who had tried to murder them and their friends on the order of a crazed monster.

There were many things that kept Nasuti from running away right then and there. Reluctance to turn her back on him, for one. The memory of his deadly abilities was still very fresh on her mind and she didn't doubt that he could catch up to a frightened woman and child easily. The staff was another consideration. Even more than the five samurai boys, it had been Kaos who embodied goodness to her. With the boys and Byakuen she had felt safe, but for the short time she had been with the ancient monk in the park she had known that she was safe. He had simply exuded serenity and calm, even right beneath Arago's castle. His power had once rent the earth asunder to protect her and Jun. Even with his death, she knew that his kind of power did not simply die. If anything had survived from him, it would be in his staff and that it allowed Shuten to wield it without complaint said more then Shuten himself ever could. Finally, he had saved her in Arago's castle. It would have been quicker, certainly easier, to ignore the plight of a woman and child and simply join Ryo against Arago. Even so, he had taken a few precious moments to kill every single one of the youja that had been threatening the two of them.

Her grandfather had always told her that everyone deserved a second chance and even if he had taken a few centuries to realize he wanted it, Shuten was asking for one. He had saved Touma and Ryo from Kayura, he had exposed himself to the Youjakai merely to offer help and it was with the tiniest bit of pity that Nasuti realized he probably didn't have a single other person in the entire world to rely on. Kaos was dead, the ronin were gone and everyone else he knew was either serving Arago or had died four hundred years earlier.

She knew she would never forget what he had been. He had appeared as a bloody-faced demon on the top of a sky scraper, lightning and thunder wrapping a cloak around him. He had made her a liability, someone for the ronin to shield even at the cost going into a fight without their full armor. He had thrown her and an eight year old child into a volcano to get at one of her friends. He had helped to give her more fear, pain and nightmares in two weeks than she had ever had in her life. No matter how much he might repent, Nasuti would never, could never, forget that.

But you didn't have to forget to forgive and Nasuti had never really been one to hold a grudge anyway.

7) When she invited Shuten into her home.

Okay, so she had agreed to give Shuten a chance to prove himself. It was out of fairness and gratitude for some past services rendered. Why she had invited the man to come under her roof was something Nasuti wasn't too clear about.

Maybe it was learning that he intended to return to a weather beaten temple for the night. When Jun asked (or demanded) to know 'where the heck have you been all this time?!' Shuten simply said he had needed time and solitude to begin discovering what Kaos had wanted of him and that he had found a small temple in the forest that suited his needs. He may have actually been completely honest; heaven knew he was certainly no stranger to sleeping in the wilderness, not if he really had grown up as soldier during the Warring States Era. However, now that the Youjakai knew that its former Oni Masho was alive and kicking they'd be looking for him in earnest. Rajura had proved that. While Shuten may have been willing and able to sleep on guard, Nasuti remembered what it had been like for her. She had not gotten anything resembling a decent night's rest during the thirteen days of the first invasion. Even with the ronin and Byakuen taking turns standing guard, she had always been afraid to sleep. Having thick walls between them and the outside wasn't a physical guarantee of safety, but it always made her feel better. Maybe that was why she invited him back to her home.

She remembered the moment mostly because it was the first time she had ever seen Shuten Douji look completely, utterly astounded. His jaw had actually dropped for a moment and then he turned his head so that his hat shadowed his face again, giving her a murmured, "That is… very kind of you, Nasuti-san."

He was silent the entire ride back to the house and he didn't cause any problems at all, though he did jump out of the jeep a bit faster than anyone else and Nasuti was pretty sure she saw a green tinge to his face that was definitely not natural. That helped her unease, in a way. It was hard to be afraid of a man who was leaning against a tree and doing his best to not retch all over your front lawn from motion sickness.

The wariness came back quick enough once Shuten was his proper color again and they were walking up to the front door. Jun was staying close to her as well, though what he thought she could do against Shuten Douji, even an armorless Shuten Douji, was beyond Nasuti. Dinner was a quick and quiet affair, although Shuten had so many helpings that Nasuti seriously began thinking he had been living off of roots.

After dinner, she pointed him in the direction of one of the empty rooms and then had gone to bed, but not before shoving her dresser up against the door for whatever peace of mind it would give her. Jun had unsurprisingly chosen to sleep in her room that night. While it did take a while for her to go to sleep, visions of Ryo and Touma being captured dancing her head, Jun's steady breathing eventually calmed her down and she drifted off....

…And was woken after what seemed like only a minute to the sound of the smoke alarms shrieking.

Nasuti flew out of bed, Jun still half asleep behind her. The dresser was hastily shoved out of the way and she ran downstairs in her nightgown. The smell of burning oil was coming from the kitchen and Nasuti realized what she was likely to find one second before running through the door.

Sure enough, Shuten was standing in the kitchen and looking completely lost. There was a pot of smoking, bubbling cooking oil on the stove, a bowl with what looked like hastily chopped vegetables on the counter and a big bag of rice next to it. In the center of the kitchen, hat and staff missing, Shuten was holding a cast iron wok in one hand and a dirty knife in the other.

Nasuti wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

"Um, I did not -" Shuten started to say, but Nasuti cut him off.

"Open the windows," Nasuti ordered, her throat already itching from the thin smoke. She strode over to the stove and switched off the burner, gingerly transferring the heavy pot to a cooler side of the stovetop. Shuten stared at her, bewildered, for a single moment before what Nasuti assumed was his soldier half kicked in and he obeyed. He dropped the knife and wok onto the counter and began opening the three windows in the kitchen.

Later, when the smoke detectors had gone silent and the air in the kitchen was breathable, Nasuti leaned against the countertop and stared at her houseguest curiously. The evidence all around her made it plain what he was trying to do, but still….

"Shuten-san, what exactly were you doing?"

He stared at her for a moment and then turned around, redirecting his stare out the nearest window. All Nasuti could see was his long red hair.

"I can see that you and the boy still fear me," Shuten said. "After all that I have done, I do not blame you for it. Despite this, you have invited me into your home and shared your food with me. I desired to try to… show my... gratitu - !"

He stopped his halting sentence short when Nasuti appeared at the edge of his vision, angling her body to see his face. She had thought she was imagining things when she noticed his slightly hunching shoulders, but no – Shuten Douji was embarrassed. His cheeks were actually a bit red.

If he was bothered by a woman invading his personal space, Shuten gave no sign of it. Instead, he began speaking much faster, almost frantically.

"Nasuti-san, I swear I was not trying to make a mess. I thought I could operate your stove, I had seen you do it last night, but I misjudged the amount of heat the flame was giving off and then that ghastly screaming sound started and I did not know how to make it stop and then the oil started burning and I did not know where it was safe to pour it out and… Nasuti-san?"

She was laughing.

Slowly dropping to her knees, the kitchen tiles cold through her thin nightgown, Nasuti curled into a ball with her right hand clamped hard over her mouth to stifle her screams of laughter. Tears were gathering in her eyes and it was getting hard to breathe, but she couldn't stop. Just seeing Shuten Douji – Shuten Douji – standing in her kitchen with a wok in one hand and the kind of expression someone would get when they realized they were about to be run over by a walrus was enough to tip her over the edge. The hysteria that had been building and building since the day she had first met Ryo, Touma, Seiji, Shu, Shin and Byakuen had finally overflowed.

At that moment, Nasuti knew without a doubt that Shuten was sincere in his desire to be redeemed. How seeing him nearly burn her kitchen to cinders accomplished this, she didn't know. Likely, it was the aftermath and Shuten's frantic attempts to calm down what he thought was a hysterical, distraught woman (and he was only half wrong about that) that cinched it for her.

No self-respecting Masho would do that.

(She was pretty sure that no self-respecting Masho would offer to help her clean up the mess either. Not that Nasuti was going to let him within three feet of the dishwasher after the stovetop fiasco, but the thought behind his offer was nice. She had him take the trash out instead).

8) When she walked in on Shuten in the bathroom.

After the kitchen incident, Nasuti had taken a few hours to show Shuten around the house and give him a very careful, very thorough explanation of how everything worked. She had told him in no uncertain terms to stay away from her computer, but the thermostat fascinated him and she twice had to readjust the climate control because he had set it to freeze them all alive just to see if it worked.

The indoor plumbing was likewise greeted with curiosity and intrigue, every faucet in the house being turned on and off, hot and cold, stream and jet. She showed him what everything in the bathroom was for (even the toilet and that was a memory she could do without) and told him that while she had no problem with him playing with the water or the electronics in the house, he was never to do both at the same time. A short lesson of basic physics followed (Why Water And Electricity Together Will Never Be Friends To You 101) and when she sure he had gotten the point, she left him to his own devices and went back to digging through her grandfather's notes for some new scrap of information she had missed before.

However, there was one lesson she did not impart to Shuten and it was because she had not thought it necessary.

Lock the door.

Which was why when Nasuti logged off her computer six hours later and went in to the nearest bathroom to wash up she was treated to the sight of a naked Shuten Douji climbing out of the tub with only a towel wrapped around his hips.

Time stopped and Nasuti understood two things.

A – Shuten Douji was a young man. Maybe not really, being four hundred years old, but he looked it. His body had not aged a day since he left for the Youjakai. There were faded scars crisscrossing their way over his body, but nothing horrific. He was in very good shape. Fresh from the wet, his hair was nearly Nasuti's shade of brown. His body was gleaming in the yellow light, water shining on his tan skin. With his face so open, so surprised, he did not look terrifying. In fact, he was actually very handsome.

He was a very handsome, very unclothed man who was staring in horrified surprise at Nasuti.

Which naturally led to B – 'close the god damned door right now, Nasuti! You are STARING at SHUTEN!'

Somehow, she managed to keep the self-discipline necessary to prevent screaming or running from sheer embarrassment. What followed was a series of jerky synapse signals sent through nerve relays that seemed to have ceased functioning.

There is doorknob. Feel doorknob. Grip doorknob. Pull doorknob towards you. Step back. Do not get hit by door. Do not answer Shuten. Do not acknowledge Shuten. Shuten is not calling you, because you remembered to knock and Shuten remembered to lock the door. Query – does Shuten know where the door lock is? Ask later. If answer is negative, teach Shuten. This moment never happened. Return to life.

It was a whole day before she could look at him without blushing and even longer before he could speak to her without averting his eyes.

When Jun asked what was up between the two of them, Nasuti gave him the single stoniest glare she had ever turned on him and flatly told the boy to drop the subject.

9) When she went into the Youjakai.

Nasuti wasn't very sure what Shuten meant when he said he had a feeling that she and Jun would be needed. Then again, she wasn't very sure about a lot of things and hunches had saved her hide more than once in the past.

The jewel and staff were a much better way to travel than a vortex. There was only a second of rushing up from the ground, her stomach left far behind her and her nails digging into Jun's tiny shoulders, then there was a lot of pink light and they were on a boat in dirty green-brown water. Ryo, Touma and Byakuen were not five feet from her. They looked exhausted and filthy, but otherwise all right.

At that point Nasuti noticed the soldiers.

The many, many soldiers.

There was then a thirty second period where Touma and Ryo painfully climbed back to their feet and both sides exchanged rushed summaries of what the other group had missed. That gave Nasuti enough time to wonder if maybe Shuten had been wrong, if maybe she was just going to be in the way again, if maybe one of the boys was going to get killed protecting her and Jun.

Then the fighting started, four against an army, and she didn't think at all except to pray that they all lived through it. Byakuen and Shuten were everywhere at once, staff and fangs cutting through armor. Against all the odds, nothing ever got through to her or Jun.

And then Touma was being taken away, Shuten had left them and it was just Byakuen against at least fifty youja. She had faith in the tiger's strength, but there was only one of him.

It was inevitable, really, that one would get past him.

Pure reflex had her grabbing Jun's sweater and yanking him close while she curled her body over his, wildly hoping her own flesh and bones would be enough to stop the spear before it reached him.

'Don't let him die. He's only eight and I –'

There was light.

There was power.

10) When she went home.

It was, at long last, finally over. Arago was dead and Kayura had promised to cease the hostile actions of the Youjakai. The boys had scattered and gone home to their families, Jun included. The Masho and Kayura had departed for the Youjakai, an entire world at their feet now that Arago was gone. In spite of all they had done to her, Nasuti still wished them the best of luck. They had seen the light before the end.

It was… strange to walk into her own home and feel out of place. She still kept expecting to see Byakuen stretched out near the foot of the stairs or Shu wandering out of the kitchen with food in his hands or Shuten sitting on the patio meditating. It was too quiet with just her.

That had made things hard at first. Even with all the cleaning, filing, explaining and repairs she had on her mind, it was still very easy to walk up the staircase, see a shadow on the wall and freeze.

'I'm alone, they can't help me if –'

But it was always an empty suit of armor or a china cabinet.

Her kitchen was overflowing with food that she could never eat by herself. Most of it went to the nearest charity. She raided the rooms the boys had stayed in and either shipped their belongings to them or boxed them up and dropped it off in the attic. She vacuumed, picking up at least a pound of white tiger fur from the carpet.

Then one day there was nothing left and Nasuti realized she had no idea what she wanted to do with her life.

Her grandfather was dead. He had left everything to her, house and money, so there was no fear for the future, but she had no idea what to do with the future. The past year had been spent as her grandfather's assistant and she had enjoyed the work, but somehow she knew that wasn't what she wanted to do with her life. The fairytales and legends that had enthralled her as a child were soured for her now.

It was funny. She had had so much energy when there was a demon out to enslave her world, but now that she had peace she wanted nothing more than to lock herself in her bedroom and never come out.

Which was more or less what she did.

Grief that had been put on hold for months now settled onto her like a well worn coat. She found herself curled up in bed one afternoon and thinking that it should have been him who lived. He was the expert on the legends, he was the one better equipped to help the warriors. Her lack of knowledge had nearly killed them all at some point, something she was sure would never have happened if it had been her grandfather who was advising the ronin. She began surviving off of instant tea and biscuits. The mail went untouched and the phone unanswered.

This continued for four days and ended when Seiji kicked down her front door and Shu, Ryo, Shin and Touma ran into her house, screaming for her.

Once they stopped screaming for her and she stopped screaming at them, they explained that none of them had heard from her for over a week and they had become rather worried.

From that day forward, Nasuti started returning to a normal life. It wasn't because she had miraculously gotten over a month and half of trauma overnight (she had not), but because she looked at her broken down front door from the top of the stairs and realized, with the calm hysteria that she had become used to, that if she did not call each and every one of the ronin at least twice a week, this would happen again.

And after the windows exploding, a couple of tigers wrestling through her house, youja breaking and entering, Shuten's antics, the natural disasters that followed five rowdy teenagers like iron shavings to a magnet and now this – breaking down her front door on a worry! – Nasuti realized she didn't want the stack of repair bills to grow any larger.

(In their defense, the troopers were very sorry they had not taken the time to knock before panicking. They made sure to tell her this. It wasn't really out of any sense of propriety – they had broken some of her things on accident before – but the way she was just standing there on the staircase landing, looking at them, made all of them realize on some instinctual level that if they didn't say something quickly she would murder them with her bare hands, then plead insanity before the court and it likely wouldn't be a lie).

There are many kinds of bravery. One kind is running out into a blizzard to save a boy you've only just met. Another is holding yourself together when your well intentioned, idiot friends break your house yet again. Nasuti is many kinds of brave and most of her friends remember this.

Every now and then, she likes to remember it too.

- E.N.D. –

I looked back and realized I hadn't written a RW/YST trooper fic for a while. Wanting to change that, I decided to write something for Nasuti/Mia. She doesn't get enough love. Neither does Jun/Yuli for that matter, but…. Well, I like Nasuti better. At least, that's the polite way of saying it.

(The honest way would be admitting that while I was watching episode 14 again, I found myself thinking that Byakuen was leaping towards Shuten with Jun on his back and silently screaming 'KILL HIM! KILL HIM, PLEASE! I GIVE HIM TO YOU!')

My memories of the show have faded with time so I went to Youtube and started flipping through the episodes there, looking for ones that had Nasuti in a bigger role. At least, that was the plan. Instead I found myself watching the whole damn series over again. It's addictive like that.

In regards to the times Nasuti was brave….

1) You can't steal from a cop without having some guts. Especially if you've never done a single thing to earn a criminal record before.

2) You can't walk out into the middle of a deserted street in a monster filled city with only a little kid for company without having a LOT of guts.

3) Nasuti makes up for being a useless burden before by being a helpful distraction. Go get her, Anubis!

4) Look up and see the icky demon palace. How eager are you to jump into a swirly tunnel of doom and go there?

5) Go back to the swirly tunnel of doom and see a prime view of the concrete awaiting your arrival when you want to go back down.

6) You don't forget someone who introduces himself as the Oni Masho Shuten Douji while lightning flashes and ominous music plays. You just don't. You especially don't forget him ripping through a street to fling a chunk of tarmac at your face.

7) It took her more guts to let him wander around the house unsupervised after this then it did to trust him around her and Jun. Can you blame her?

8) Walking in on your houseguest in the bathroom, that's easy. Getting out of situation without further embarrassment? Now that's class. After the boys left to train, she got out of the habit of knocking. Bad thing to do, girl.

9) I never really understood why she didn't protest her and Jun's going to the Youjakai more.

"But Shuten, we are defenseless sidekicks! How can we help?"

"Don't worry Nasuti-san. The Great Plot demands it!"

"Oh, well in that case…."

10) Sometimes getting it all back together again after the shit is done hitting the fan is the hardest part of all. Byakuen sheds. A girl can only take so much male idiocy.