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Yaobikuni Holds Her Breath
Kanata finds himself at the edge of the water again, dim light and the lullabye hum of machines his companions. He breathes. Frost eddies in the air in the shape of his exhale, whilst the water agitates below. Sits. Slips one leg, then the other into the tank and remains there with his legs dangling beneath him, the water tracing ripples anew in the wake of his movements.
"Splish. Splash."
The dark shapes beneath say nothing back.
—
Two planets and 617,000 kilometers ago a live battle had meant stagelights, song, and dance.
Now, Europa's cold surface sings violence with the live broadcast activation, war machines revving. Tetora's voice crackles over the comms, "The Black Flame is the mark of effort! Ryuusei Black, Nagumo Tetora!" Black Flame towers to its full mechanical height over the ice-crust and snow.
"The Red Flame is the mark of justice! Ryuusei Red, Morisawa Chiaki!" Across the battlefield, Hero Protagony poses. In the privacy of his cockpit, Tetora rolls his eyes to the sound of Chiaki's laughter. Time was, he'd stopped resenting the sentai poses as lame. With the added bulk of the mech, massive cables pulling the metal frame into place to imitate its pilot and stunt combat swapped for the real thing, his opinion reverted.
He still takes a combat stance of his own, though.
The music starts in, an old-world recording of Ryuuseitai. Singing is optional, but Tetora still mouths the words to his parts. Colors Arise! Now, I’ll raise up a blinding beam of light— and with the flick of a switch, Black Flame is covered in its namesake, radiating heat as he launches forward to slam into the Protagony at speed.
Chiaki has a shield waiting to meet him and Tetora grins. Way to go, Morisawa-senpai. They've choreographed it well— perfectly timed to satisfy the audience and to let them go home in one piece. No fatalities, no major repairs. Unlike certain other earlier incidents— berserking, people pulled from cockpits unplanned, and censored broadcast after censored broadcast. Ryuuseitai was given Europa because they could be counted to keep the image clean, and know how to keep to choreography. Sparks fly out, firework-bright against the void sky for a moment before momentum wins against the minimal gravity and Black Flame propels them both forward. Snow explodes outward and evaporates in the same moment, steam all about them and he swaps his visuals to infrared in the mist that wreathes them now.
He pauses for it to clear, before comes Chiaki's return volley. When the combat can't be seen, there's no point.
No return volley arrives.
Seconds tick past. He loses his place in where he should be in their predetermined routine. Thirty seconds gone now and in the mist heat signals multiply while Hero Protagony's bulk has dissipated to nothing. Tetora blinks hard, but the readings don't change. His screen tells him he's alone in a sea of angry blips. His heart speeds, he whirls around, and the sensors berserk. The guitars in Colors Arise continue to scream electric chords at him— the stage now real as the one then. His every nerve shouts, forget the plan, go on the defense, go on the attack, do something—
Ice fissures beneath his feet. Creaks and hollow thuds build to a shattering eruption, and the glacial shelf falls away. The abyss swallows him whole. Red dyes his monitors completely, as Black Flame is no longer surrounded but inundated. Panic chokes him and he yanks at the controls. Unlike Kanata's Meteor Abyss, Black Flame wasn't designed for undersea combat; he can feel icy liquid seeping in past the rubber soles of his boots. Up to the ankles. Knees, thighs, his chest all underwater, the deluge coming fast.
His hands are off the controls now, but he doesn't use them to struggle with his bindings— mech fighting jolts the cockpit too much for the pilot to be safe in any other position than firmly strapped in. He peers down into the wavering image of his own numb hands moving beneath the water, LCD panels blurred and are rendered unreadable and unreliable by refraction but still he can see the red warning signs of something in there with him.
There's nothing else for it.
Water up to his nose now, tilting his head back to take the last few breaths he can, he kicks hard from his seat to shatter the casing on the emergency self-destruct. So much for no damage to the mechs. But without hesitation, he slams his closed fist on the button, despite the shards he's unleashed in the watery cockpit. His head goes under entirely. He can only feel his stung numb useless limbs in abstract and he shuts his eyes against the glass floating in there with him.
The countdown starts, slow seconds and blaring warnings that sound like the reality of an alarm echoing through a dream as Tetora begins to drown.
He doesn't know how long he's suspended there, in the unreality of his breath held until his throat spasms, saltwater with a sulfuric edge flooding in. His body is heavy with water weight, his mind light-headed from lack of air. He waits for— there! That jolt! The cockpit shifting sideways, ejection launch ready, pistons work and reliable hydrolics jostle the cockpit and then it tears free.
He is thrown from Black Flame. Water leaks from everywhere and the cockpit's pod crashes loud with impact, bounces, and goes skittering across the ice. Cuts open and leak. Tetora's eyes open, wearily, but he views the world through the black haze of oncoming unconsciousness. He coughs weakly, water seeping from his mouth.
Black Flame stands tall and still before him, high and dry and fully-functioning, lights and sounds blaring out an emergency. Get back. Evacuate.
It doesn't make any sense.
Less sense still, Shinkai-taichou's presence. He kneels down to put his damp hands on his cheeks, thumbs gently working open Tetora's mouth. His eyes water and Kanata's wavering shiloette abandons delicacy to shove in the rest of his fingers, like to force Tetora to disgorge all his chest took in. That isn't what he does, though. Instead, his other hand drives his jaw shut over the digits, grinding teeth into skin until it breaks and blood seeps a raw iron taste into Tetora's mouth.
"Swallow, Tetora…" Shinkai-taichou's voice floats down to him, as if from a great distance. And, more by instinct than of his own volition, he does. Only then does Kanata release.
As his vision finally gives in to darkness completely, the last thing he sees is Kanata swinging himself into the empty space where the cockpit had been. Impossibly, Black Flame's steel frame shuts itself around him with a spray of wet gore and rises.
—
Chiaki keeps both his hands anchored tight to Nagumo's in the hospital room. Kanata, damp, drips in the second seat beside him.
Another sudden mechanical failure, the flashing suicide lights on Black Flame as it threw its pilot out on the ice without warning— Nagumo wasn't the first to have it happen. Not by far. And now, he lay as another body in a another bed with a nasal canula and oxygen pumped into lungs flooded with mystery fluid from drowning in a bone-dry cockpit.
Kanata had finished out the battle, swapping in and calming the mech as medical crews pulled Nagumo in from the sub-zero wastes. Black Flame was ensconced in its hangar bay, diagnostic crews looking for what caused its fraudulent signals. He wants to trust the ES doctors, he really does. He'd grown up in a hospital bed, his fate in their hands and they'd carried him through. He'd decides to believe in them, even knowing this isn't the first time. There were others that had made it before. Takamine had been fine too, after his incident. He had left though, Shinobu travelling with him as support whilst he gets used to his new posting training the understudies— until he decides if he wants a replacement or to come back.
Anyway, Nagumo will be waking up soon. Experience says so, Tetora's tougher than he gives himself credit for. And as Chiaki isn't scheduled to beat up his mech on camera, he's staying here and waiting until he does. He takes in a deep breath and laughs loud enough to not hear the beeps of Nagumo's heart-rate over the sound of his own voice.
"Fuhaha! Chin up, Kanata! Imagine Nagumo's face, seeing his hero looking so blue!"
Beside him, Kanata's brow furrows in confusion as he slowly metes out a reply, "But… I am. I am Ryuusei Blue?" He doesn't sound sure.
"Yeah!" He reassures him. Kanata hasn't appeared in battle in a while, but that doesn't change his position in the unit! "But we're not on stage right now."
"Hmm. . ." Kanata considers it. "If we're not 「on-stage」then . . . I'm not a hero."
Chiaki refutes him, "You don't need to be so humble! When Nagumo's up, I'm sure he'll agree and praise you as the coolest, most reliable hero there ever was!"
"I do like 「praise.」
"Right! So accept it!"
"But… . . . Why am I being 「praised?」 His wide eyes look at Chiaki, searching.
Unease begins to filter in. Whatever got Tetora might have gotten Kanata too. Maybe he should refer him to the doctors as well? But that's a thing to worry about later. In the moment, he answers, "Since you took over his fight, the medical crews were able to see him right away! You saved him, just as much as the doctors did! And his Live ranking won't even drop, since you put on a wonderful show. A clean battle with cool flourishes and with no dirty work. You were a perfect, reliable hero!"
"Oh. I did?" He looks pleased. "Thank you, Chiaki. I'm 「happy」. To be Tetora's hero."
"You're a hero's hero! When he wakes up, he'll tell you himself."
"When will he wake up?" Kanata looks about, like he's expecting a second Tetora other than the one dead asleep on the bed to pop up and thank him. "I 「want」 to see Tetora."
Chiaki has no immediate answer. The pause lasts just long enough to be awkward, before he lets go of Tetora's hands to take Kanata's and guide them to take his place holding Tetora's. Finally, Kanata seems to recognize who is in the hospital bed. Kanata gives a watery smile and leans to rest his head on Chiaki's shoulder, and Chiaki scoots in closer. All their hands clasped together, they settle in to wait.
—
Madara leans over the rail in the mech bay. Down below, he can see Tetora's boots and not much else of him as he works on Black Flame's electric insides, denuded of its armor. The mechanic's bag beside him spills over, wrenches and calipers, laid on bare metal across from wet towels with soft pink stains. Absorbed in his work, he doesn't notice Madara's heavy footfalls on the catwalk above.
"Heeeeey!" He calls down. "It's Tetora-san! ☆ You're up and at 'em!"
Tetora emerges with a smooth slide of the wheels. "Ossu~." He gives a casual salute with oil streaking his gloves, a sodden towel still in his grasp. "What's up, Mikejima-senpai? Do you need something for Zarathustra?" He sits up to wring the towel out into a bucket murky with dark liquid, and tosses it aside with the others. "Gotcha! I'm pretty much done with diagnostics. Until the cockpit gets put back, not a lot left to do. I'll go carry this all over!"
Madara descends the stairs as Tetora shoves tools back into place and hefts them. He hadn't needed them, but it's as good an opportunity to get Tetora alone and away from cameras as any. "Aren't you a good boy, Tetora-saaaan? Sure, come on, Zarathustra is this way!"
He leads him over and as Tetora makes to set the toolbox down, Madara yanks him by the wrist into his own mech and seals up the entrance behind them as the tools spill over the catwalk with a clatter. Whoops. ☆
"Hey! What's the big idea?" Tetora protests, wincing as he tugs his arm free.
Madara lets him go but takes his place, blocking the door release latch. "Haha! Now, now that no one is around— you're a good kid! You don't want to worry your seniors, riiiight? Okay! Let it all out, vent all your frustrations at Mama! Fuhahaha!"
Tetora, cornered, looks more exasperated than scared. "So you're where Morisawa-senpai got that laugh. He told me what he used to be like, but s'hard to believe he'd come up with that over-the-top problem personality all on his own," He shakes his head, "Even if he's tryin' to imitate his beloved tokusatsu heroes. It's 'cuz of yours."
Madara shrugs, expansive. "Right! Incisive! Here's the problem, ab origine. But that means he's only seeing my surface." He grins, showing his teeth, "Really, I'm a scaaaaaary guy who is willing to do whatever it takes to keep the people I love safe." He looms now over Tetora, taking full advantage of his height, his broad physique. "So you understand me, right, Tetora-san? You, who has also chosen to walk the path of a villain, because he can't become a hero!"
With folded arms Tetora says, "You can just cut to the chase."
"What happened with Kanata-san?"
Their eyes meet. For a long time they stare each other down, but Tetora averts his gaze first. "I dunno, Mikejima-senpai. I blacked out."
Madara scrutinises Tetora, same as he scrutinises his own memories. Stacks of reports, highlighting the myths of their homeland and the bad things that have occurred since Europa became the homeland— papers that were more highlighter yellow than not. Kanata, made his leader again. Kanata there just in time to save Tetora, Kanata there at the hospital wing, Kanata pouting and avoiding answering him. Kanata asking questions he ought to know the answers to. It's discomfittingly like viewing the world through crossed eyes, double images that overlay when he focuses: the Kanata when they were children at the Shinkai compound, the Kanata walks on his own, his human legs firm on solid ground.
Tetora's hands have blood in the cuticles and under the nail beds, the ES uniform boots have left a trail of dilute red in the patterns of his treads behind him. Tetora's downcast gaze sees the same thing, and Madara decides it's frustration that he sees in the cast of his jaw.
"Haha! Is that so!" He puts a hand on Tetora's shoulder and squeezes, a gesture that's meant for comfort but he never has been good at controlling his own strength. "Tell me if you remember anything, Tetora-san!" And he slaps Tetora companionably on the back, and leaves Zarathustra's cockpit, closing it up behind him.
Tetora registers he's being shut in a moment too late and Madara only hears the edge of his voice calling after him, protesting, as he goes without so much as a glance back.
—
In the guts of Midori's old mech, Tetora inhales deep. With his eyes closed, his brain narrows down the scent to sea salt, lingering. His nostrils flare confirming it's only air, even as his brain insists on calling back to what it was like to drown.
Eugh.
He opens his eyes. The torch beam cuts a circle in the dark. Where it lands, it could be rust flaking at the edges of the valves. Only one way to be sure and he had his tetanus shot kind of recently. He hoists himself up, face lifted close, and licks.
It's the same stuff he tasted before, when Kanata bled in his mouth. So now he's left with a hard dilemma: what gives? He saw Kanata crushed in his mech, he's found Kanata's blood in Midori's, he talked to Kanata literally yesterday about dripping all over the breakfast table and getting the rice soggy. He'd check other mechs from older incidents, but he needs to lift a card for higher clearance. If he's still hallucinating, does he go back to the ES doctors that keep finding everyone "fine" after everything? Mikejima-senpai didn't react to him scrubbing blood out of his mech but Mikejima-senpai wouldn't. Maybe he should get that bucket back and see if Chiaki screams. He's weak to spooky stuff so even if there's some grand conspiracy, Morisawa-senpai would give it up right away
He lowers himself down from the bar he hangs from, clambering back out of Midori's mech, Mascot, landing with a soft thud. In the hangar now, he hears he's not alone.
Shinkai-taichou's voice echoes off the steel walls, magnified to distortion. Tetora looks down through the beams to see him standing there nude, pale, and a puddle of water at his feet. Hustling, Tetora takes the stairs at a run, two steps at a time.
"Shinkai-taichou!" He calls down. "Shinkai-tai...chou...?"
His steps hesitate when Kanata turns to him, and there's zero recognition in his eyes. He's been singing, but there's no words. It's like whale-song, indescribably sad. Condensation has formed on the silicate faux-glass roof above him and a steady drizzle falls on him alone.
Before he can take another step forward a doctor appears and Tetora stows himself behind a concrete pillar before he can be seen. The doctor hustles him off and Tetora watches them go, a dripping trail left in their wake.
Okay, he's got to talk to Morisawa-senpai. Whatever is up, those ES doctors know. They cannot trust them.
—
Chiaki pounds on the door to Kanata's quarters— always kept locked. A fine discovery! It's good that Kanata has figured out privacy, and discovered he enjoys some time to himself!
It is making inviting him to the beach more difficult than he had figured on, though.
Chiaki calls out, "Kaaaanaataaa! Beach day! Come on, we're going out! Beach day time!" The big inflated beach ball sitting in the hallway behind him will make the point just as much as his voice, if Kanata looks through the viewport.
". . .Europa beaches are 「cold」." Kanata's green eyes appear through a slit and Chiaki internally celebrates.
"Hahaha! Where was this attitude when I tried to get you out of the school fountain, way back when?"
"The 「fountain」 had water. Europa is all 「ice」."
"Not this one! Pinky promise! Heroes never lie!"
The door opens a crack and behind it Kanata is visibly pouting in his darkened quarters, backlit by a dim stack of aquarium tanks behind him. Still, he's opened the door, and that's what counts! "Where…? Show me."
"Okay! Close your eyes!" Chiaki puts his hands over Kanata's, which Kanata doesn't seem amused by.
"Chiaki . . ." Kanata warns, hands reaching up to remove Chiaki's.
Chiaki rebukes, "Don't look! A hero has no fear of the unknown!"
Kanata sticks his tongue out, but keeps his eyes closed as he pulls Chiaki's hands away fully. Chiaki grins at his sightless face, and puts his hands on his shoulders to steer him down the hall, leaving the door to slide shut behind them, auto-locking. They traverse until Chiaki stops at a VR training room and yanks the door open. He gives a gentle shove to push Kanata into the room, and Kanata's eyes open in surprise as his bare feet sink into warm soft sand.
Inside, Chiaki has used his clearence to wreck the training room perfectly. Speakers sound seagull cries, and water tank footage plays on one wall, ocean dunes displayed on others and clear blue earth skies above. Sand bags meant for weight have been spilled to make their own beach, stacked high enough to prevent the mini-lake he's flooded on the far-side of the room from spilling into the hallway beyond them.
Kanata, wondering, trails into the room and Chiaki unbuckles and kicks off his boots in nearly the same motion, and begins to run. He grabs Kanata's wrist as he goes, and takes him with him to the water's edge. Kanata has replaced shock with giddiness and goes running with him, keeping pace as they jump into the shallows. Their faces mirror each other's, grins wide.
Chiaki turns to face the wall of simulated water, and shouts, "Moooom! We're home! Your precious boys came home, back to your big blue arms!"
Next to him, Kanata echoes, "We're home~".
The only waves are the ones they create sloshing about. But they create plenty, Kanata immediately submerging himself to the waist, down on his knees in the water and Chiaki remembers now to run back for the beach ball. He serves it up and starts a ruleless game, the two of them declaring how it is they're winning now, calling out move names as they serve and catch. The sky-blue earth sky fades to twillight orange and even Chiaki is left a bit winded from their play, exertion more a glow than an ache. The awkward tension he's felt with Kanata recently has dissipated in the water entirely.
Now, if ever, is the time to ask.
Chiaki leans back on his elbows on the shore, and does. "Do you know what happened with Tetora?"
Kanata doesn't show any bewilderment. He turns to look at Chiaki, and his mouth twists out of a smile. His expression is now all resistance.
"In the footage, there was something weird. You piloted it, right? But the cockpit was already gone," Chiaki elaborates.
"…"
"Tetora didn't just eject himself, Black Flame's not built to throw him to freeze on the ice. All the piloting mechanisms, the cockpit all come out too! How did you do that? You were there in the footage, it wasn't remote piloting."
Silence stretches between them and Chiaki can't do anything but keep going.
"And Tetora threw up water after, even though he never got submerged. Like it came from inside!"
Kanata finally responds. "Chiaki. . . No. Don't ask." He stonewalls.
"So you do know!" Chiaki rises, ready to begin a speech. Surely, if Kanata shares his burden, then the two of them can tackle it together. They're stronger together. The five of them were Ryuuseitai— he'll tell their juniors, and it will all work out!
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a human shape in the water tank footage. He twists to see it, to make sure no one's fallen into the reservoir— a hero's words are important, but their deeds more so! But as he sees the shape fully, he recognizes it.
Kanata.
Chiaki's mouth hangs open and he starts to ask a new question, turning to look at the Kanata at his side but in Kanata's eyes is determination as he puts a palm against Chiaki's mouth to stop him from finishing even the shape of his name. Shaking his head, voice slow and soft as ever, Kanata tells him, "I. . . don't want you to get 「replaced」 too." Chiaki realises now that he hears not just agitation in his voice, that's concern. Kanata's eyes fix above the entrance, where an ubiquitous security camera sits placidly recording everything.
He's watching the wrong place.
A moment later, the door beneath it swings open, and another Kanata stands in the doorway.
Oh, Chiaki realises. This is a nightmare.
—
"Morisawa-senpai! It's the ES doctors!"
"Wait— ES is being infiltrated by evil scientists?" Chiaki's voice edges into excitement at Tetora's announcement. "Are you sure? We have to let Tenshouin know right away!"
"No. It's not going to be news to him." Exasperation. "We are the evil orgainzation. Again."
". . . In the past, Tenshouin has definitely used us for selfish gain. But he always acts for gain— he's always been the lesser between two greater evils. Like Crimpro! You remember Crimpro! If we're pawns, he's got an opponent, or at least a goal! Until we know, we can't move against him."
"Stop defending ES."
Chiaki does not stop. "You haven't been compromised? I had a nightmare, too. If we are being studied, or experimented on, or there's brainwashing, it could be a quarentine measure from—"
"We're fine! We're all fine. You remember what Takamine-kun said, right? Before he left."
Chiaki's voice fades. He does.
"Yeah. Kanata got him out of Mascot. And never got out after. S'what all the claims have in common— he saves us, then doesn't save himself."
Chiaki finishes then, understanding. "—It wasn't a nightmare!" A beat, rearranging the pieces in his head. "Tenshouin wants idols everywhere." Softer, now. "Even here. Even if here comes at a cost."
Madara clicks stop on the tape Tetora had passed him, ejecting it. He watches Kanata's face and no surprise shows, just a knowing unhappiness.
They've figured it out.
In the story they grew up on, the myth their religion fed them with every meal, the Shinkai blood and flesh had been panacea. A curse had come from the far flung heavens and crashed into earth, bad things that flowed into the land and into people's blood. Bad will and bad health had followed, until the people had given a distant ancestor to the sea and then torn him apart with their teeth and took him into their bellies. An ancestor's song had soothed a cursed people.
Now, they lived on an ocean in the far flung heavens. Kanata's blood painted the mechs, his voice rang in the all hanger bays, as they lived shut up in a metal colony, far below Europa's waters. Of all the places they could have settled, it was here. An otherworldly ocean, the place most likely in the world to sustain life— a world that might have sustained the same things that made it to Shinkai land, after the meteor. Of course, it wasn't even coincidence. Eichi wasn't a believer, but he was supremely practical. He must have seen exactly what Madara had, in the reports of the Europa pilots behavior. He'd seen bad things, and if he hadn't, Keito had.
Kanata doesn't deny it, his jaw set defiantly.
A God after all.
Madara stares him down. Then, his shoulders slump. He confesses, "I wanted you to get to live as a person."
Kanata looks down, sorrowing. He knew and so he had hidden it. Madara has finally been allowed into his ever-locked room; all secrets between them vanished away. Madara approaches, to hear his voice better, over the hum of the oxygenating and purification machines. He takes his seat at Kanata's side, and Kanata leans against him. Their two sets of legs dangle into the water below. Their gazes settle below the gentle ripples, where drift the dark shapes of Kanata's own body, repeated and cloned. A fate Kanata had taken on all his own.
After a long beat, Kanata starts, "I know. . ." He looks up once more, meeting his eyes. His voice has rare steel in it, a martyr's determination. "But. . . I 「want」 you to live."
—
It's hard being leader. It's hard keeping secrets.
It's been hard since that rotten emperor had come to him, three of his bodies explaining in turn the world he'd remade in the shape of his dream of eternity. Mass-produced idols, he said, rows of bodies floating behind him.
"Welcome to the club," Eichi had purred to Kanata, before giving a breathless little laugh. Kanata had shoved him back but the other two Eichi hadn't even deigned to stop him, relaxing against each other, enjoying the show. Eichi, back up against the tank, had barred his blunt teeth and made his offer:
He'd thrown plenty of bodies to Europa before Ryuuseitai. Europa had a curse that ate through minds and hearts, and now thanks to his Majesty the Emperor's schemes, they'd be familiar hearts and minds. A Tetora, taking his frenzied teeth to his own wrists. A Chiaki, laughing alone to phantoms. Break one, send another. A fact, and a threat— no, Kanata couldn't tell anyone.
So Kanata had made his choice. New Captain, now and forever. His awful, lonely choice.
And now, Madara at his side, he'd keep making it. He'd paint every mech's insides with his own iron, talismanic, until Europa was 「safe」.
"Splish. Splash."
The dark shapes beneath say nothing back.
—
Two planets and 617,000 kilometers ago a live battle had meant stagelights, song, and dance.
Now, Europa's cold surface sings violence with the live broadcast activation, war machines revving. Tetora's voice crackles over the comms, "The Black Flame is the mark of effort! Ryuusei Black, Nagumo Tetora!" Black Flame towers to its full mechanical height over the ice-crust and snow.
"The Red Flame is the mark of justice! Ryuusei Red, Morisawa Chiaki!" Across the battlefield, Hero Protagony poses. In the privacy of his cockpit, Tetora rolls his eyes to the sound of Chiaki's laughter. Time was, he'd stopped resenting the sentai poses as lame. With the added bulk of the mech, massive cables pulling the metal frame into place to imitate its pilot and stunt combat swapped for the real thing, his opinion reverted.
He still takes a combat stance of his own, though.
The music starts in, an old-world recording of Ryuuseitai. Singing is optional, but Tetora still mouths the words to his parts. Colors Arise! Now, I’ll raise up a blinding beam of light— and with the flick of a switch, Black Flame is covered in its namesake, radiating heat as he launches forward to slam into the Protagony at speed.
Chiaki has a shield waiting to meet him and Tetora grins. Way to go, Morisawa-senpai. They've choreographed it well— perfectly timed to satisfy the audience and to let them go home in one piece. No fatalities, no major repairs. Unlike certain other earlier incidents— berserking, people pulled from cockpits unplanned, and censored broadcast after censored broadcast. Ryuuseitai was given Europa because they could be counted to keep the image clean, and know how to keep to choreography. Sparks fly out, firework-bright against the void sky for a moment before momentum wins against the minimal gravity and Black Flame propels them both forward. Snow explodes outward and evaporates in the same moment, steam all about them and he swaps his visuals to infrared in the mist that wreathes them now.
He pauses for it to clear, before comes Chiaki's return volley. When the combat can't be seen, there's no point.
No return volley arrives.
Seconds tick past. He loses his place in where he should be in their predetermined routine. Thirty seconds gone now and in the mist heat signals multiply while Hero Protagony's bulk has dissipated to nothing. Tetora blinks hard, but the readings don't change. His screen tells him he's alone in a sea of angry blips. His heart speeds, he whirls around, and the sensors berserk. The guitars in Colors Arise continue to scream electric chords at him— the stage now real as the one then. His every nerve shouts, forget the plan, go on the defense, go on the attack, do something—
Ice fissures beneath his feet. Creaks and hollow thuds build to a shattering eruption, and the glacial shelf falls away. The abyss swallows him whole. Red dyes his monitors completely, as Black Flame is no longer surrounded but inundated. Panic chokes him and he yanks at the controls. Unlike Kanata's Meteor Abyss, Black Flame wasn't designed for undersea combat; he can feel icy liquid seeping in past the rubber soles of his boots. Up to the ankles. Knees, thighs, his chest all underwater, the deluge coming fast.
His hands are off the controls now, but he doesn't use them to struggle with his bindings— mech fighting jolts the cockpit too much for the pilot to be safe in any other position than firmly strapped in. He peers down into the wavering image of his own numb hands moving beneath the water, LCD panels blurred and are rendered unreadable and unreliable by refraction but still he can see the red warning signs of something in there with him.
There's nothing else for it.
Water up to his nose now, tilting his head back to take the last few breaths he can, he kicks hard from his seat to shatter the casing on the emergency self-destruct. So much for no damage to the mechs. But without hesitation, he slams his closed fist on the button, despite the shards he's unleashed in the watery cockpit. His head goes under entirely. He can only feel his stung numb useless limbs in abstract and he shuts his eyes against the glass floating in there with him.
The countdown starts, slow seconds and blaring warnings that sound like the reality of an alarm echoing through a dream as Tetora begins to drown.
He doesn't know how long he's suspended there, in the unreality of his breath held until his throat spasms, saltwater with a sulfuric edge flooding in. His body is heavy with water weight, his mind light-headed from lack of air. He waits for— there! That jolt! The cockpit shifting sideways, ejection launch ready, pistons work and reliable hydrolics jostle the cockpit and then it tears free.
He is thrown from Black Flame. Water leaks from everywhere and the cockpit's pod crashes loud with impact, bounces, and goes skittering across the ice. Cuts open and leak. Tetora's eyes open, wearily, but he views the world through the black haze of oncoming unconsciousness. He coughs weakly, water seeping from his mouth.
Black Flame stands tall and still before him, high and dry and fully-functioning, lights and sounds blaring out an emergency. Get back. Evacuate.
It doesn't make any sense.
Less sense still, Shinkai-taichou's presence. He kneels down to put his damp hands on his cheeks, thumbs gently working open Tetora's mouth. His eyes water and Kanata's wavering shiloette abandons delicacy to shove in the rest of his fingers, like to force Tetora to disgorge all his chest took in. That isn't what he does, though. Instead, his other hand drives his jaw shut over the digits, grinding teeth into skin until it breaks and blood seeps a raw iron taste into Tetora's mouth.
"Swallow, Tetora…" Shinkai-taichou's voice floats down to him, as if from a great distance. And, more by instinct than of his own volition, he does. Only then does Kanata release.
As his vision finally gives in to darkness completely, the last thing he sees is Kanata swinging himself into the empty space where the cockpit had been. Impossibly, Black Flame's steel frame shuts itself around him with a spray of wet gore and rises.
—
Chiaki keeps both his hands anchored tight to Nagumo's in the hospital room. Kanata, damp, drips in the second seat beside him.
Another sudden mechanical failure, the flashing suicide lights on Black Flame as it threw its pilot out on the ice without warning— Nagumo wasn't the first to have it happen. Not by far. And now, he lay as another body in a another bed with a nasal canula and oxygen pumped into lungs flooded with mystery fluid from drowning in a bone-dry cockpit.
Kanata had finished out the battle, swapping in and calming the mech as medical crews pulled Nagumo in from the sub-zero wastes. Black Flame was ensconced in its hangar bay, diagnostic crews looking for what caused its fraudulent signals. He wants to trust the ES doctors, he really does. He'd grown up in a hospital bed, his fate in their hands and they'd carried him through. He'd decides to believe in them, even knowing this isn't the first time. There were others that had made it before. Takamine had been fine too, after his incident. He had left though, Shinobu travelling with him as support whilst he gets used to his new posting training the understudies— until he decides if he wants a replacement or to come back.
Anyway, Nagumo will be waking up soon. Experience says so, Tetora's tougher than he gives himself credit for. And as Chiaki isn't scheduled to beat up his mech on camera, he's staying here and waiting until he does. He takes in a deep breath and laughs loud enough to not hear the beeps of Nagumo's heart-rate over the sound of his own voice.
"Fuhaha! Chin up, Kanata! Imagine Nagumo's face, seeing his hero looking so blue!"
Beside him, Kanata's brow furrows in confusion as he slowly metes out a reply, "But… I am. I am Ryuusei Blue?" He doesn't sound sure.
"Yeah!" He reassures him. Kanata hasn't appeared in battle in a while, but that doesn't change his position in the unit! "But we're not on stage right now."
"Hmm. . ." Kanata considers it. "If we're not 「on-stage」then . . . I'm not a hero."
Chiaki refutes him, "You don't need to be so humble! When Nagumo's up, I'm sure he'll agree and praise you as the coolest, most reliable hero there ever was!"
"I do like 「praise.」
"Right! So accept it!"
"But… . . . Why am I being 「praised?」 His wide eyes look at Chiaki, searching.
Unease begins to filter in. Whatever got Tetora might have gotten Kanata too. Maybe he should refer him to the doctors as well? But that's a thing to worry about later. In the moment, he answers, "Since you took over his fight, the medical crews were able to see him right away! You saved him, just as much as the doctors did! And his Live ranking won't even drop, since you put on a wonderful show. A clean battle with cool flourishes and with no dirty work. You were a perfect, reliable hero!"
"Oh. I did?" He looks pleased. "Thank you, Chiaki. I'm 「happy」. To be Tetora's hero."
"You're a hero's hero! When he wakes up, he'll tell you himself."
"When will he wake up?" Kanata looks about, like he's expecting a second Tetora other than the one dead asleep on the bed to pop up and thank him. "I 「want」 to see Tetora."
Chiaki has no immediate answer. The pause lasts just long enough to be awkward, before he lets go of Tetora's hands to take Kanata's and guide them to take his place holding Tetora's. Finally, Kanata seems to recognize who is in the hospital bed. Kanata gives a watery smile and leans to rest his head on Chiaki's shoulder, and Chiaki scoots in closer. All their hands clasped together, they settle in to wait.
—
Madara leans over the rail in the mech bay. Down below, he can see Tetora's boots and not much else of him as he works on Black Flame's electric insides, denuded of its armor. The mechanic's bag beside him spills over, wrenches and calipers, laid on bare metal across from wet towels with soft pink stains. Absorbed in his work, he doesn't notice Madara's heavy footfalls on the catwalk above.
"Heeeeey!" He calls down. "It's Tetora-san! ☆ You're up and at 'em!"
Tetora emerges with a smooth slide of the wheels. "Ossu~." He gives a casual salute with oil streaking his gloves, a sodden towel still in his grasp. "What's up, Mikejima-senpai? Do you need something for Zarathustra?" He sits up to wring the towel out into a bucket murky with dark liquid, and tosses it aside with the others. "Gotcha! I'm pretty much done with diagnostics. Until the cockpit gets put back, not a lot left to do. I'll go carry this all over!"
Madara descends the stairs as Tetora shoves tools back into place and hefts them. He hadn't needed them, but it's as good an opportunity to get Tetora alone and away from cameras as any. "Aren't you a good boy, Tetora-saaaan? Sure, come on, Zarathustra is this way!"
He leads him over and as Tetora makes to set the toolbox down, Madara yanks him by the wrist into his own mech and seals up the entrance behind them as the tools spill over the catwalk with a clatter. Whoops. ☆
"Hey! What's the big idea?" Tetora protests, wincing as he tugs his arm free.
Madara lets him go but takes his place, blocking the door release latch. "Haha! Now, now that no one is around— you're a good kid! You don't want to worry your seniors, riiiight? Okay! Let it all out, vent all your frustrations at Mama! Fuhahaha!"
Tetora, cornered, looks more exasperated than scared. "So you're where Morisawa-senpai got that laugh. He told me what he used to be like, but s'hard to believe he'd come up with that over-the-top problem personality all on his own," He shakes his head, "Even if he's tryin' to imitate his beloved tokusatsu heroes. It's 'cuz of yours."
Madara shrugs, expansive. "Right! Incisive! Here's the problem, ab origine. But that means he's only seeing my surface." He grins, showing his teeth, "Really, I'm a scaaaaaary guy who is willing to do whatever it takes to keep the people I love safe." He looms now over Tetora, taking full advantage of his height, his broad physique. "So you understand me, right, Tetora-san? You, who has also chosen to walk the path of a villain, because he can't become a hero!"
With folded arms Tetora says, "You can just cut to the chase."
"What happened with Kanata-san?"
Their eyes meet. For a long time they stare each other down, but Tetora averts his gaze first. "I dunno, Mikejima-senpai. I blacked out."
Madara scrutinises Tetora, same as he scrutinises his own memories. Stacks of reports, highlighting the myths of their homeland and the bad things that have occurred since Europa became the homeland— papers that were more highlighter yellow than not. Kanata, made his leader again. Kanata there just in time to save Tetora, Kanata there at the hospital wing, Kanata pouting and avoiding answering him. Kanata asking questions he ought to know the answers to. It's discomfittingly like viewing the world through crossed eyes, double images that overlay when he focuses: the Kanata when they were children at the Shinkai compound, the Kanata walks on his own, his human legs firm on solid ground.
Tetora's hands have blood in the cuticles and under the nail beds, the ES uniform boots have left a trail of dilute red in the patterns of his treads behind him. Tetora's downcast gaze sees the same thing, and Madara decides it's frustration that he sees in the cast of his jaw.
"Haha! Is that so!" He puts a hand on Tetora's shoulder and squeezes, a gesture that's meant for comfort but he never has been good at controlling his own strength. "Tell me if you remember anything, Tetora-san!" And he slaps Tetora companionably on the back, and leaves Zarathustra's cockpit, closing it up behind him.
Tetora registers he's being shut in a moment too late and Madara only hears the edge of his voice calling after him, protesting, as he goes without so much as a glance back.
—
In the guts of Midori's old mech, Tetora inhales deep. With his eyes closed, his brain narrows down the scent to sea salt, lingering. His nostrils flare confirming it's only air, even as his brain insists on calling back to what it was like to drown.
Eugh.
He opens his eyes. The torch beam cuts a circle in the dark. Where it lands, it could be rust flaking at the edges of the valves. Only one way to be sure and he had his tetanus shot kind of recently. He hoists himself up, face lifted close, and licks.
It's the same stuff he tasted before, when Kanata bled in his mouth. So now he's left with a hard dilemma: what gives? He saw Kanata crushed in his mech, he's found Kanata's blood in Midori's, he talked to Kanata literally yesterday about dripping all over the breakfast table and getting the rice soggy. He'd check other mechs from older incidents, but he needs to lift a card for higher clearance. If he's still hallucinating, does he go back to the ES doctors that keep finding everyone "fine" after everything? Mikejima-senpai didn't react to him scrubbing blood out of his mech but Mikejima-senpai wouldn't. Maybe he should get that bucket back and see if Chiaki screams. He's weak to spooky stuff so even if there's some grand conspiracy, Morisawa-senpai would give it up right away
He lowers himself down from the bar he hangs from, clambering back out of Midori's mech, Mascot, landing with a soft thud. In the hangar now, he hears he's not alone.
Shinkai-taichou's voice echoes off the steel walls, magnified to distortion. Tetora looks down through the beams to see him standing there nude, pale, and a puddle of water at his feet. Hustling, Tetora takes the stairs at a run, two steps at a time.
"Shinkai-taichou!" He calls down. "Shinkai-tai...chou...?"
His steps hesitate when Kanata turns to him, and there's zero recognition in his eyes. He's been singing, but there's no words. It's like whale-song, indescribably sad. Condensation has formed on the silicate faux-glass roof above him and a steady drizzle falls on him alone.
Before he can take another step forward a doctor appears and Tetora stows himself behind a concrete pillar before he can be seen. The doctor hustles him off and Tetora watches them go, a dripping trail left in their wake.
Okay, he's got to talk to Morisawa-senpai. Whatever is up, those ES doctors know. They cannot trust them.
—
Chiaki pounds on the door to Kanata's quarters— always kept locked. A fine discovery! It's good that Kanata has figured out privacy, and discovered he enjoys some time to himself!
It is making inviting him to the beach more difficult than he had figured on, though.
Chiaki calls out, "Kaaaanaataaa! Beach day! Come on, we're going out! Beach day time!" The big inflated beach ball sitting in the hallway behind him will make the point just as much as his voice, if Kanata looks through the viewport.
". . .Europa beaches are 「cold」." Kanata's green eyes appear through a slit and Chiaki internally celebrates.
"Hahaha! Where was this attitude when I tried to get you out of the school fountain, way back when?"
"The 「fountain」 had water. Europa is all 「ice」."
"Not this one! Pinky promise! Heroes never lie!"
The door opens a crack and behind it Kanata is visibly pouting in his darkened quarters, backlit by a dim stack of aquarium tanks behind him. Still, he's opened the door, and that's what counts! "Where…? Show me."
"Okay! Close your eyes!" Chiaki puts his hands over Kanata's, which Kanata doesn't seem amused by.
"Chiaki . . ." Kanata warns, hands reaching up to remove Chiaki's.
Chiaki rebukes, "Don't look! A hero has no fear of the unknown!"
Kanata sticks his tongue out, but keeps his eyes closed as he pulls Chiaki's hands away fully. Chiaki grins at his sightless face, and puts his hands on his shoulders to steer him down the hall, leaving the door to slide shut behind them, auto-locking. They traverse until Chiaki stops at a VR training room and yanks the door open. He gives a gentle shove to push Kanata into the room, and Kanata's eyes open in surprise as his bare feet sink into warm soft sand.
Inside, Chiaki has used his clearence to wreck the training room perfectly. Speakers sound seagull cries, and water tank footage plays on one wall, ocean dunes displayed on others and clear blue earth skies above. Sand bags meant for weight have been spilled to make their own beach, stacked high enough to prevent the mini-lake he's flooded on the far-side of the room from spilling into the hallway beyond them.
Kanata, wondering, trails into the room and Chiaki unbuckles and kicks off his boots in nearly the same motion, and begins to run. He grabs Kanata's wrist as he goes, and takes him with him to the water's edge. Kanata has replaced shock with giddiness and goes running with him, keeping pace as they jump into the shallows. Their faces mirror each other's, grins wide.
Chiaki turns to face the wall of simulated water, and shouts, "Moooom! We're home! Your precious boys came home, back to your big blue arms!"
Next to him, Kanata echoes, "We're home~".
The only waves are the ones they create sloshing about. But they create plenty, Kanata immediately submerging himself to the waist, down on his knees in the water and Chiaki remembers now to run back for the beach ball. He serves it up and starts a ruleless game, the two of them declaring how it is they're winning now, calling out move names as they serve and catch. The sky-blue earth sky fades to twillight orange and even Chiaki is left a bit winded from their play, exertion more a glow than an ache. The awkward tension he's felt with Kanata recently has dissipated in the water entirely.
Now, if ever, is the time to ask.
Chiaki leans back on his elbows on the shore, and does. "Do you know what happened with Tetora?"
Kanata doesn't show any bewilderment. He turns to look at Chiaki, and his mouth twists out of a smile. His expression is now all resistance.
"In the footage, there was something weird. You piloted it, right? But the cockpit was already gone," Chiaki elaborates.
"…"
"Tetora didn't just eject himself, Black Flame's not built to throw him to freeze on the ice. All the piloting mechanisms, the cockpit all come out too! How did you do that? You were there in the footage, it wasn't remote piloting."
Silence stretches between them and Chiaki can't do anything but keep going.
"And Tetora threw up water after, even though he never got submerged. Like it came from inside!"
Kanata finally responds. "Chiaki. . . No. Don't ask." He stonewalls.
"So you do know!" Chiaki rises, ready to begin a speech. Surely, if Kanata shares his burden, then the two of them can tackle it together. They're stronger together. The five of them were Ryuuseitai— he'll tell their juniors, and it will all work out!
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a human shape in the water tank footage. He twists to see it, to make sure no one's fallen into the reservoir— a hero's words are important, but their deeds more so! But as he sees the shape fully, he recognizes it.
Kanata.
Chiaki's mouth hangs open and he starts to ask a new question, turning to look at the Kanata at his side but in Kanata's eyes is determination as he puts a palm against Chiaki's mouth to stop him from finishing even the shape of his name. Shaking his head, voice slow and soft as ever, Kanata tells him, "I. . . don't want you to get 「replaced」 too." Chiaki realises now that he hears not just agitation in his voice, that's concern. Kanata's eyes fix above the entrance, where an ubiquitous security camera sits placidly recording everything.
He's watching the wrong place.
A moment later, the door beneath it swings open, and another Kanata stands in the doorway.
Oh, Chiaki realises. This is a nightmare.
—
"Morisawa-senpai! It's the ES doctors!"
"Wait— ES is being infiltrated by evil scientists?" Chiaki's voice edges into excitement at Tetora's announcement. "Are you sure? We have to let Tenshouin know right away!"
"No. It's not going to be news to him." Exasperation. "We are the evil orgainzation. Again."
". . . In the past, Tenshouin has definitely used us for selfish gain. But he always acts for gain— he's always been the lesser between two greater evils. Like Crimpro! You remember Crimpro! If we're pawns, he's got an opponent, or at least a goal! Until we know, we can't move against him."
"Stop defending ES."
Chiaki does not stop. "You haven't been compromised? I had a nightmare, too. If we are being studied, or experimented on, or there's brainwashing, it could be a quarentine measure from—"
"We're fine! We're all fine. You remember what Takamine-kun said, right? Before he left."
Chiaki's voice fades. He does.
"Yeah. Kanata got him out of Mascot. And never got out after. S'what all the claims have in common— he saves us, then doesn't save himself."
Chiaki finishes then, understanding. "—It wasn't a nightmare!" A beat, rearranging the pieces in his head. "Tenshouin wants idols everywhere." Softer, now. "Even here. Even if here comes at a cost."
Madara clicks stop on the tape Tetora had passed him, ejecting it. He watches Kanata's face and no surprise shows, just a knowing unhappiness.
They've figured it out.
In the story they grew up on, the myth their religion fed them with every meal, the Shinkai blood and flesh had been panacea. A curse had come from the far flung heavens and crashed into earth, bad things that flowed into the land and into people's blood. Bad will and bad health had followed, until the people had given a distant ancestor to the sea and then torn him apart with their teeth and took him into their bellies. An ancestor's song had soothed a cursed people.
Now, they lived on an ocean in the far flung heavens. Kanata's blood painted the mechs, his voice rang in the all hanger bays, as they lived shut up in a metal colony, far below Europa's waters. Of all the places they could have settled, it was here. An otherworldly ocean, the place most likely in the world to sustain life— a world that might have sustained the same things that made it to Shinkai land, after the meteor. Of course, it wasn't even coincidence. Eichi wasn't a believer, but he was supremely practical. He must have seen exactly what Madara had, in the reports of the Europa pilots behavior. He'd seen bad things, and if he hadn't, Keito had.
Kanata doesn't deny it, his jaw set defiantly.
A God after all.
Madara stares him down. Then, his shoulders slump. He confesses, "I wanted you to get to live as a person."
Kanata looks down, sorrowing. He knew and so he had hidden it. Madara has finally been allowed into his ever-locked room; all secrets between them vanished away. Madara approaches, to hear his voice better, over the hum of the oxygenating and purification machines. He takes his seat at Kanata's side, and Kanata leans against him. Their two sets of legs dangle into the water below. Their gazes settle below the gentle ripples, where drift the dark shapes of Kanata's own body, repeated and cloned. A fate Kanata had taken on all his own.
After a long beat, Kanata starts, "I know. . ." He looks up once more, meeting his eyes. His voice has rare steel in it, a martyr's determination. "But. . . I 「want」 you to live."
—
It's hard being leader. It's hard keeping secrets.
It's been hard since that rotten emperor had come to him, three of his bodies explaining in turn the world he'd remade in the shape of his dream of eternity. Mass-produced idols, he said, rows of bodies floating behind him.
"Welcome to the club," Eichi had purred to Kanata, before giving a breathless little laugh. Kanata had shoved him back but the other two Eichi hadn't even deigned to stop him, relaxing against each other, enjoying the show. Eichi, back up against the tank, had barred his blunt teeth and made his offer:
He'd thrown plenty of bodies to Europa before Ryuuseitai. Europa had a curse that ate through minds and hearts, and now thanks to his Majesty the Emperor's schemes, they'd be familiar hearts and minds. A Tetora, taking his frenzied teeth to his own wrists. A Chiaki, laughing alone to phantoms. Break one, send another. A fact, and a threat— no, Kanata couldn't tell anyone.
So Kanata had made his choice. New Captain, now and forever. His awful, lonely choice.
And now, Madara at his side, he'd keep making it. He'd paint every mech's insides with his own iron, talismanic, until Europa was 「safe」.