The Dragon Samurai rushed toward the other samurai  as he thrust his now longer katana through James’s stomach, drawing loud screams, yelps, and gasps from other bystanding samurais. Or so they thought.

James was still able to block Kawa’s sword.

“So, you took the risk and assumed that it was an illusion? What if you could have gotten hurt?” Kawa asked in annoyance due to the fact that James was able to figure it out without even verifying it.

“I just have a wolf’s instinct.” James flashed a big grin before it was replaced with a concerned frown. “But fuck! You scared the shit out of me! I thought I was going to die for sure!”

Kawa could not help but smile a little bit. He hadn’t smiled for a long time. At least, not since the day Martians attaced.

“I forfeit,” he said, withdrawing his flaming katana. “You win.”

“What?! What the hell?!” James yelled angrily when Kawa turned away to walk over to the group of Earthling samurais. “What are you, crazy?! Giving up in front of…”

“Who?” Kawa stopped and turned to James. “What are you babbling about? We are comrades, aren’t we?”

“Bastard.” James crossed his arms. “Why did you fight in the first place?”

Kawa shrugged his shoulders. “Why not? You wanted to fight, didn’t you?”

“You’re a weird dude!” James laughed lightheartedly. “We have our own reasons, eh?”

Before Kawa could say anything, the samurais were cheering loudly and chanting Kawa’s and James’s names. Their celebration was cut short when the announcement started.

“ATTENTION FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN’T BEEN CALLED YET, PLEASE GO AND SEE CAPTAIN WILLIAMS.” The speaker nearby echoed all over the area.

Kawa and James looked at each other with questioning looks on their faces. They had not been called yet… right?

They returned to the ceremony where Captain Williams gave the inspiring speech only to find four more samurais waiting as well.

After asking them about what it was for, they only received the shrugs. What was it exactly Captain Williams wanted?

~EARTHxMARS~

“Oh. My. Fucking. God!”

Kawa crossed his arms in annoyance. James was grinning widely, enjoying the admiration and attention he was receiving.

“You’re my heroes!” One of the Earthling warriors exclaimed in excitement. He rapidly shook Kawa’s hands first and then James’s. “Name’s Alejandro Villa! You can call me Alex! And, this is Matthew Johnson!”

“Yo.” Matt waved his hand with an unimpressive look on his face, but Kawa and James did not even bother asking him about the look that he gave them.

“And… Lunan samurais?” James glanced at them, noticing that there was only one female Lunan samurai.

“I’m Shiro Endo. This is Jessica Young.” Shiro bowed his head politely.

“Hi!” Jessica said cheerfully. “Why do you think we haven’t been called yet?”

“Maybe we are in trouble?” James asked.

“No, we are the only ones who got in the fight. They didn’t.” Kawa scratched the back of his head in wonder.

“So… what brings you to be a samurai, cutie?” James smiled sweetly at Jessica, who giggled in return.

“Oh, stop it, you!” The female samurai laughed again.

Kawa shot James a near-deadly glare. We don’t have time to flirt now! We have a war to fight!

James just shrugged his shoulders carelessly and was about to say another word to the beautiful woman when Captain Williams called them over at the other side of the field.

“First of all, I would like to thank you so much for waiting this long and being patient, samurais,” said Captain Williams with his hands locked behind his back. “Kawa and James, we saw your recent spar… and I must say it was quite impressive. That was the reason why we took so long to change our strategy.”

“Strategy? What kind of strategy?” Shiro asked bluntly only to receive an elbow in the waist from Jessica, who shushed at him.

“We would like for you to join the special force called Dark Fury.” Captain Williams was walking forth and back, as any captain would do in front of his soldiers. Or rather, samurais.

“Dark Fury?” Matt placed his palm on one of his hips. “You’re not going to place us in the front line?”

“That’s exactly correct.”

“But we are just recruits. We recently joined the Sora troop,” said Jessica. “What made you make such an important decision?”

“For months, we had looked through every single of our samurais’ background information. We made sure not to overlook every single qualification you have.. three times. Mr. Matthew Johnson is a highly-skilled combatant. And, Shiro Endo exceeded our expectations of being a sniper as a new samurai. Now, Alejandro Villa and Jessica Young are much more important -- a medic and a hacker that we greatly need. And…”

A small smile broke out on his face as Captain Williams turned to Kawa and James. “That was when you came into this picture. We saw you sparring with each other. We had been searching for two co-leaders - each one for Earth and Moon. You completely understand what you are going to face in this war. Already, you have been admired by thousands here.”

“W-wait a second.” James shook his head as if he was trying to wake up from this wonderful dream. As much as the dream might be wonderful, he did not want to be disappointed when he found out that it was not real. “Leaders? You chose us?”

“Congratulations, James Miles and Kawa Takayama,” Captain Williams gave them a short salute. “You are the co-leaders of Dark Fury. Please board the Limitless as soon as possible. Then, we’ll call you to the bridge for your first mission.”

~EARTHxMARS~

“Wow!” James exclaimed, trying to absorb everything that was shiny into his head. “This is only for us?”

After boarding the Limitless spaceship, each group of six samurais got assigned to a room where they would be sleeping. As for the new members of Dark Fury, the room they were provided was even better than whatever they dreamed of.

“This is mine!” Jessica yelled. She already ran to the first bedroom she could find. She fell in love with it the moment her blue eyes landed on it.

Kawa could not help but wonder why only they were being treated special… Were they that important to the superiors? Fancy kitchen, glamour of living room, spotless bathrooms, and even high-classy decorated bedrooms. None of the other samurais had such things like them.

“Don’t think too hard, Kawa!” James picked up his duffel bag and was on the way to his new bedroom. “It will only hurt you further.”

“Shut up.” Kawa rolled his dark eyes and was heading for the last remaining bedroom. He did not even bother analyzing his own bedroom, but he could at least acknowledge and appreciate its cleanliness, large space, and amazing design. His bed was covered with dark blue silk sheets. There was a large wooden dresser next to the large closet which could be considered as another bedroom. There were only two posters of famous male and female Earthling samurais, one on the wall across from each other.

Kawa recognized the Earthlings samurais as the ones in the news a few years ago. They died together trying to find one of Martian spies, which unfortunately resulted in the mission failure, but the citizens of Earth still admired and honored them anyway.

However, it triggered another chain of accusations. Mars accused Earth of defamation while claiming that there was no such thing as a Martian spy. Earth, on the other hand, pointed her finger at how many spies Mars sent there and was able to prove that it was true by showing their Martian prisoners.

That was when the mess started. There was a sudden terrorist attack on the Earthling prison which only consisted of Martian prisoners, killing them all. The accusations grew from there as the war did. This all happened while the other planets and moons were watching the whole ridiculous drama between Mars and Earth.

“Hn,” Kawa simply said as he placed his duffel bag on his bed. Just as he began unpacking, he heard the rather loud announcement.

“DARK FURY, PLEASE REPORT TO THE BRIDGE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. I REPEAT…”

Kawa did not even need to hear it twice. He abandoned whatever he was doing and then immediately went to meet the other Dark Fury members, only to find Shiro tapping his impatient foot on the hard floor.

The Earthling samurai made a few brief glances at Shiro. He had never met another Asian other than his own family before. He was wondering if he was Chinese? Or Korean?

“What the hell are you staring at me for?” Shiro snapped out of annoyance.

“Sorry,” Kawa quickly said. “It’s just… I’ve never seen another Asian in my life before. Besides my family, I mean.”

Shiro did not say anything else. He stopped tapping his foot a little while ago, but he had this obvious look on his face that told Kawa that if they were going to wait any second longer, then James and others would be in serious trouble.

“Um.” Kawa was about to say something but stopped when Shiro gave him a hateful glare. “What do you have against me?”

“You?” Shiro scoffed at him. “Why does every Earthling think it’s all about themselves? Why, of course! You dragged us into your war so that you would not lose to Mars!”

“Dragged? There was a treaty agreement between Earth and Moon!” Kawa snapped but then tried to calm himself down. “Look, we are on the same team now. Can’t just put this behind us and focus on the mission they plan to give us?”

“Treaty agreement my ass! There was no such thing as one! You stole our people!” Shiro put his hand on the handle of his katana, about to draw it only to get interrupted.

“Hey, hey!” James yelled in concern after he entered the living room with Matt, Alex, and Jessica. “What the hell is going on? Another fight between Earthling and Lunan?”

“Ask him if you want to. I know no more than you do.” Kawa shrugged his shoulders. “Now that we are all here, I’m going to the bridge if you are interested in joining the walk with me. They aren’t going to wait any longer for us.”

“Kawa.” James quickly caught up with his new friend. “What the hell just happened? We were just getting along fine!”

Kawa sighed lightly, placing his palm on his face. “No matter how much we get along, there’s still… a tension between Earth and Moon.”

“Right…” James said softly. “But, all we can do right now is to move forward, right? I know it had been a few years since we became allies, but at the same time, some of us despised each other, you know.”

“Look, you don’t have to hide anything. I know your district sent some of their best warriors to us, but… that isn’t stealing at all.”

“I know.” James smiled at him, patting on Kawa’s back. “As long as we work together without any distraction, we will be fine! I’m pretty sure Shiro knows the consequences of the mission if we are not able to work together.”

“Hey, what are you guys whispering about? You’re acting like you are best friends or something like that!” Matt yelled from behind but never got any response from the new best friends.