This is an idea I got after watching Big Hero 6 for the…third time, I think? So yeah. Enjoy. It's very different from my initial idea, but I like it.
It was just another day. But not for Hiro Hamada, who was standing in front of his brother's grave.
"Hey Tadashi," he said, giving a weak smile. "It's been a while, hasn't it? Uh, college's been pretty good, nothing…remarkable. The others are pretty much the same, and so is Aunt Cass. Everyone's…doing fine." He sighed and looked around. "We're…still doing that superhero thing, if it's all right with you…"
Hiro dropped to his knees. It had been exactly one year since Tadashi's death, and, standing here, it felt just as painful now as it did back then. "I… We…we miss you…"
"Hiiiiiiiro?"
Hiro's torso stiffened. The voice, high-pitched, was unlike anything he had heard before. He turned in the direction of the voice and saw a girl around his age standing a few feet behind him. She had blonde hair tied up in twintails that ended about an inch below her shoulders. She wore a lavender t-shirt and neon pink shorts that went down to her mid-thigh. He found it odd that he hadn't noticed her before…
She cocked her head to the side and said, "Hiiiiiro?"
Strangely enough, her high-pitched voice didn't get on his nerves.
Hiro, unsure of what else to say, said, "Yes?"
The girl pointed to the ground next to him and said, "Sit by?"
It took Hiro a few moments to realize what she was trying to say. "Y-You wanna sit by me?"
The girl nodded.
"Um…" Right now, Hiro just wanted to be alone, but if her speech patterns were any indication… "O-Okay."
The girl knelt down right next to Hiro, who felt more than a little uncomfortable by it.
After a few moments of silence, the girl said, "Tada good."
"…What?"
"Tada good," she repeated, her voice cracking ever so slightly.
"…Tada?"
The girl pointed at Tadashi's grave. "Tada."
"Oh, you mean Tadashi?"
The girl nodded.
"Heh. Yeah, he was a pretty great guy…"
Suddenly, the girl put her arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer.
"Um… What are you doing?"
"Comfort," she replied.
"Um… I'm not used to being hugged by…strangers…"
"I'm Shizuka Sasaki."
"That…still doesn't really tell me anything about you," Hiro pointed out as he quietly reflected on the irony of her name (her voice might not have been grating but it was anything but "quiet").
Shizuka didn't move. In fact, she wrapped her other arm around him. "You need."
Hiro really wanted to be alone, but he just couldn't tell her to leave.
Turned out, he didn't need to.
"Shizuka!" yelled a voice not too far away.
A man wearing traditional Japanese clothing suddenly came running up to them.
"Shizuka, I keep telling you not to go off by yourself!"
"But Daddy…" she whined.
Her father gently grabbed her shoulder and tried to pull her away from Hiro, but she held steadfast to him. He ended up having to pry her arms off of him.
"Sorry about that," the man said to Hiro. "She has a tendency to…wander."
Hiro then noticed a group of people a fair distance away. Even from here, he could tell that they were all wearing traditional Japanese clothing.
As the man gently dragged her away by the wrists, the girl looked back at Hiro and yelled, "Immortals! Beware Immortals!"
Hiro just blinked as the girl was dragged out of earshot. What on earth did she mean by "Immortals"?
Regardless of what she meant, Hiro didn't feel like sticking around much longer, especially with that group of people nearby.
Hiro forced himself to his feet…and almost immediately ran into another, nearly identical girl. The only difference was that this girl looked like she was 10 and had a bow and a bunny charm in her hair. There was an aura about her that made Hiro feel strangely uneasy.
She held up a polished brown flower vase with a white chrysanthemum and a neon-pink lily in it. Inscribed in the vase was the Japanese character for "immortal."
"The Shiragiku represents truth or grief," she said with a noticeable Japanese accent. She held the vase toward him. "This is for you. Don't lose it."
Hiro somewhat reluctantly took the vase. "What's with the lily?"
The girl blinked. "…It's important."
"…How?"
"…Just don't lose it."
With that, she ran off towards the group of people in the distance, leaving Hiro alone to wonder just what the heck was going on.
Later that night…
The three friends sat in a circle a few feet away from the smoldering warehouse, clutching the bowls holding candles in their hands.
One was a college-aged boy wearing a green mask that covered the top half of his face. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt that was the same color as his mask. On the shirt was a small, silver nametag that said "B-26".
Another was a woman about the same age as him. She was wearing a neon-pink mask that covered almost her entire face and a same-colored outfit that resembled a nurse's uniform. She had a nametag that said "A-93".
The third was a man wearing a Kitsune mask. He wore an outfit nearly identical to a ninja's, aside from the white bandages covering his arms and hands and a nametag that said "C-14". Straddled across his back was a katana scabbard, and an electronic sword handle hung from a belt around his waist. The mask was white with yellow eyes, holes on the nose, and a black line where the mouth was that extended the entire width of the mask.
The three were silent, the only movement coming from B-26 bouncing his crossed legs.
C-14 set his bowl on the ground. "Guys…I'm sorry." A voice scrambler made it impossible to tell what he really sounded like. "If it hadn't been for me, you-"
"Don't," interrupted A-93, speaking with a German accent. "Don't apologize. It's better that all three of us survive instead of just one."
"Marina's right," said B-26. "You'd just feel guilty about being the only one to survive."
C-14 looked down at his bowl. "I…can't deny that, but…"
"But nothing. If anything, I…I actually…I actually prefer being alive…with you two."
"That…" Marina said shakily, "goes for me too."
C-14 just sighed and shook his head. "Matriarch won't be happy to learn we ended up going against her orders."
"There was no way we could just… We couldn't… You didn't want go through with it. We weren't going to force you to go through with something you didn't want to do."
"…You wouldn't be forcing me. You went out of your way to get me out of there."
"I think what she meant," said B-26, "is that we couldn't just sit by and watch you beg to be let out."
C-14 was silent for a few moments before saying, "The sisters aren't going to take this well…"
Marina and B-26's breaths hitched in their throats. They had forgotten about the sisters, and they indeed weren't going to take the whole thing well…but they knew that C-14 was just trying to change the subject, so neither of them responded.
There was a long silence afterward.
"…So what now?" asked B-26. "We can't stay here. Matriarch might come by."
"And I still have to deal with my previous employers…"
"Whaddaya mean?"
"…There are certain lines that I will not tolerate being crossed. And they crossed several of those lines."
"Meaning you turned against them and now they're after you," stated Marina.
"It's…part of the reason I agreed to this in the first place."
"Well… We still need a place to spend the night, Kitsune," B-26 said to C-14.
"I know, Kevin."
0~*~0
Two hours later, they had settled on an abandoned warehouse in the out-of-the-way part of town. The door, interestingly enough, looked like it had been busted down at some point, but it was clear the building hadn't been used for a long time.
Earlier, Kevin and Marina had scavenged some discarded but very much usable mattresses and blankets and had laid them down on the warehouse floor.
While Kevin and Marina lied down on their mattresses and pulled their blankets over themselves, Kitsune just sat on his mattress, staring at the moon through a hole in the ceiling. He waited until he was sure they were sound asleep before standing up. He picked up a tattered black blanket and draped it over him like a cloak. He would look suspicious, sure, but going out in his normal attire would make him look even more suspicious.
He wandered out into the city of San Fransokyo, careful to stay away from the busy streets where it would be easier to see him. The reason for his wandering was simple: he needed to be alone with his thoughts (and, frankly, the city was beautiful at night).
He eventually wandered into the cemetery; he knew there would be nobody there at this time of night (though he had still brought a few wildflowers he had found to enhance the disguise), and-
…No.
There WAS somebody here, out in the graveyard. He wasn't close enough to detect anything specific about the person, but there was definitely somebody out there. Kitsune slowly crept in the direction of the person, ready to bolt at any moment; his training as an assassin had taught him to avoid confrontation with civilians unless absolutely necessary.
The darkness of the night made it extremely hard to see, even for him; he didn't even notice the other person until his foot lightly kicked them and he crouched onto the ground.
It was a boy, a young boy, not a child but definitely younger than he was. He was asleep, curled up in front of a gravestone. He had shaggy black hair and he was wearing a zipped-up hoodie. Kitsune, out of curiosity, strained to see the gravestone. It was too dark to see the dates of birth and death, but he could make out the name quite well: Tadashi Hamada.
Just two seconds later, there was a crash of thunder. His gaze quickly turned toward the sky. There were thick clouds above them, and through the nostrils in his mask, he could detect the smell of rain.
A soft groan brought his attention back to the boy.
He might've been a hitman, but there was no way Kitsune was going to leave a sleeping young boy out in the rain.
He gently picked up the boy in his arms, careful not to jostle him too much. He froze when the boy shifted slightly, mumbling "Nii-chan…"
Nii-chan. That meant…"big brother," didn't it?
"I-It's okay," he whispered, speaking softly so as to limit the distortion caused by his voice scrambler, "I got you. Nii-chan's here, I'm here."
The boy cuddled closer to him and a small smile crossed his face, just barely exposing the gap in his upper teeth. It made him look…quite cute.
Kitsune carried him to the entrance of the cemetery, where there was a reasonably-sized building. He tried the door. Locked.
Shifting the likely middle-schooler so that he was holding him in his left arm (dear god, he was so SMALL), he took his skeleton key out of his pocket and put it into the lock. It turned, and the door opened.
A few feet away from the door was a comfy-looking couch up against the wall. Kitsune carefully laid the boy down on the couch, getting him into a comfortable-looking position. The boy shifted a bit as he settled into the couch. Kitsune glanced out the door's window. It was raining.
"Just in time," he softly muttered.
He looked at a clock hanging in the hallway. 3:12 a.m.
"What the heck were you doing here at this time of night?" he quietly asked the boy, knowing full well he wouldn't get an answer.
Kitsune sighed. "Well, looks like we'll be here for a while."
Author's note: …I feel like there was something I wanted to mention, but I forget what. There is one thing I could say, but I won't say it until it's explicitly pointed out.
Oh yeah. Be sure to check out my other stories!
Update: To clarify a few things, Shizuka means "quiet" in Japanese. And the warehouse that the three spend the night at is indeed the same one where Yokai made the microbots. I'm telling you that now because I'm not sure if I'll be returning to that location, but we'll just have to see.
