On Fire (Power Rangers Samurai)

101 - Deadly / Illusion

"Go go samurai!" Mia morphed, immediately clashing his knife with her spinsword.

Knowing the length of Mia's sword was an advantage, Ito backed off and headed towards Antonio.

"!?" Antonio froze up as the knife swiftly ran towards him.

Once there, Ito grabbed Antonio's shirt and drove his knife straight ahead, lodging it as hard as he could.

But Ito had only impaled the wall as Antonio jerked himself out of the way, his shirt getting torn in the process.

Ito swiped at Antonio a few more times, stepping forwards and he dodged back.

Mia quickly intercepted Ito's next attack with her sky fan, causing the knife to flick out of his grip.

She then sent a strong wind at Ito, using the light zord to empower her element. It threw Ito towards the shelves of scrolls and knocked Mia into Antonio, he steadied her before she fell.

"What should I do?" Antonio asked as both of them watched Ito shake his head, recovering from the push.

"We need a way out of here." Mia sucked her teeth as Ito stood up, pulling out a new blade that looked like a large kitchen knife. Except it had considerably frightening ridges.

"He's trying to kill us as quickly as possible." Mia's body dropped in temperature as her fear rose.

"There's a door here." Antonio gestured towards a metal door on their side of the room. "I'll get it open."

"Right." Mia needed to focus on covering Antonio and minimizing injuries. But with a human opponent in a mentor's garb, it became hard to fight.

They had always fought nighlok; evil monsters who thrive off of the pain and suffering of humans.

Taking a human life was obviously very different from taking a nighlok's. But if it came down to her or Antonio's life, she would have to kill him.

Mia took a few cautious steps towards Ito, whose anger and impatience grew.

Ito suddenly zipped towards Mia at an unexpected speed. As he appeared right in front of her, he stabbed his knife downward as if he was trying to skewer her head.

Mia parried it with her sky fan, her arms moving before she could think about it.

"The door's locked." Antonio looked through his bag until he pulled out a lucky paper clip.

As both of her hands were occupied with her sky fan and light zord, Ito drove his fist into the side of her waist.

Mia stumbled over, completely shocked by how powerful the punch was. It didn't even seem normal.

Sure, Ito had talents in martial arts, but he was also an old man. He shouldn't be able to keep up with a power ranger who was morphed and had the light zord.

As she staggered, Ito grabbed her wrist and tried to sever her arm once again.

Using her wind power, Mia forced a distance between herself and Ito, allowing herself to catch her breath.

Her head was spinning at how fast everything was moving and how deadly every passing second seemed.

She couldn't just keep dodging Ito's attacks by a hair. She needed to get on the offensive.

"Okay..." Mia put the light zord's disc onto her sky fan.

Of course, she contemplated heavily whether she needed so much power to knock over a single human. But she knew she couldn't waste any more time.

If Ito was this deadly, what could have possibly happened to Jayden?

As she span the disc, power became to accumulate in her sky fan, causing it to glow. The kanji labels that were carved into the shelves caught the reflection of the light and began to shine fiery color.

Ito wasn't fazed at all, rather he seemed amused.

Mia took a deep breath, sending multiple whips of light at him. Each was powerful enough to hurt a nighlok, but kill a man.

And to her dismay, Ito swayed left to right, dodging each one as he made his way towards Mia.

Ito swung at her again with his knife, aiming to amputate her leg from her thigh. And once again, Mia caught his knife with her fan.

How could he have been fast enough to dodge that attack while approaching it? And how could he have been confident enough to not be killed?

As their weapons clashed, she caught a smirk on Ito's face. She was puzzled as Ito backed away from her, holding back a peal of laughter.

"Huh?" Mia looked around to see what was so entertaining.

That's when she noticed blood around her abdomen, following a deep cut around her waist.

She didn't even feel any pain. Was it the adrenaline that numbed her senses?

She touched the wound gently, blood staining her fingertips. It didn't seem real to her.

Next thing she knew she was kicked down, onto her knees.

Ito took victorious steps towards her until a backpack plopped into his face, and blocked his sight. He unexpectedly lost balance, flopping onto his butt.

"Come on!" Antonio yanked Mia through the metal door and out of the room. As quickly as possible, he pushed the heavy door shut and locked it.

"Mia?" Antonio tried to steady her, noticing that she was shaking uncontrollably. His heart was jumping too after facing such a fright, but Mia looked rather disconnected.

"You're okay now, okay? We have to keep moving." Antonio told her. "We don't know when that psychopath is going to burst through that door."

Mia couldn't believe he was saying that she was fine until she noticed there was no blood on her white gloves.

When she looked down at herself, no blood again.

"An illusion?" Mia thought aloud.

"We have to move." Antonio took her hand and started to run forward. They went through a few more rooms and doors until they reached a room with the commotion of people.

"Rangers?" A voice questioned, peering at the two from behind bars. "A ranger! A ranger is here!"

Mia and Antonio walked forward, they discovered a series of large cages, half of them holding groups of monks.

Many of them were meditating or resting. The rest were standing by the bars, excited but concerned to see the pink ranger. As for Antonio, they hadn't a clue who he was.

"Mia! Antonio!" Ji's voice immediately caught Mia and Antonio's ears. They searched for him among the cages, finally relieved when they spotted him.

"Mentor, what heck is happening here?" Antonio asked without hesitation.