"I'm still injured you know." Kotetsu protested as he tried to follow the others. He immediately bit his tongue, hoping they did not hear that. Kotetsu didn't like others to know how he felt. He was one of the oldest heroes, it was his job to look out and worry for them, not the other way around. It seemed like forever when he was talking to Kaede on the phone the day before. Everyone in the city had been afraid and stressed. However it was finally it was over. Jake was no longer a threat to the people, Barnaby had finally moved on from revenge, Antonio, Keith, and Ivan were now on the way to recovery; and Nathan, Karina, and Pao-lin didn't have to fight Jake one on one and risk getting hurt. They could finally celebrate now, they shouldn't have to worry about him.
However luck was not on his side. Barnaby, Karina, Nathan, and Pao-lin were all staring at him, looking very concerned. After all, Kotetsu never talks about being hurt. If he mentioned it now, he must be seriously hurt. Karina recalled him asking Angus were should he go earlier. She knew he had been unconscious up until that point. There was no way he would have had permission to leave the hospital. She knew he was in no condition to have left that bed. Barnaby thought about the blood coated flash grenade. When he had first noticed it and turned to look at Kotetsu the elder hero tried to hide the blood spot on his vest. At that point the blood had been enough that his hand could no longer cover the mark. At the time he had been too angry to care, now however he realized Kotetsu must be in critical condition and needed to return to the hospital. Nathan and Pao-lin were currently staring at that very spot.
"Tiger..." Pao-lin started, wanting to ask how he was.
"I'm fine, I'm fine." Kotetsu said, literally trying to wave the concern off. When all four gave him horrified looks he glanced at his hand to see it was covered in his own blood, as well as he was no longer covering his side. He immediately covered his side again.
Barnaby went to speak when Nathan put a hand on his shoulder. "I see. If he says he's fine then he's fine. We shouldn't be wasting time here chatting anyway. There are injured people in the hospital who want to see us!" the fire user said. Barnaby turned to the older hero, about to yell about how this wasn't wasting time when he got a stern look in response. He realized what Nathan was doing. Kotetsu was a private man. Everyone else was an open book to him, but his own life was none of their business. They all knew he needed to be checked by the hospital, but if they stated they knew that, Kotetsu wouldn't go. They had to make him believe that they bought his lie if they wanted him to get any medical care.
"Your right Fire Emblem." he said, referring to what was unspoken. Nathan smiled and turned to leave, Karina and Pao-lin following.
"Well then, you should definitely go to the hospital with them." Kotetsu said. Barnaby wanted to curse him out, but that wouldn't get them anywhere right now.
"You need to come too Kotetsu! Isn't Rock Bison a good friend of yours? You should want to see him. Or is there a reason you can't return to the hospital?" Barnaby asked. Kotetsu paled a little and sighed.
"I'm coming I'm coming." he huffed. Barnaby smiled softly, he won. He walked over to his motorcycle and climbed on, then watched Kotetsu get into what was currently his side car. He didn't miss the older wince in pain as he climbed in. Barnaby wanted to get to the hospital quickly to find out exactly what happened. He knew he couldn't go too fast though or he'd risk hurting Kotetsu more.
When Barnaby and Kotetsu arrived, Nathan, Karina, and Pao-lin were already waiting outside of the hospital. "Come on Tiger, Handsome." Nathan called. Pao-lin went inside and Kotetsu followed her. As they entered the doors however Kotetsu got a bad felling. He glanced at the others. Pao-lin was in front of him, Karina was on his left side and Bunny on his right. Nathan was directly behind him. Kotetsu got the distinct feeling that he had been trapped. If he tried to leave Nathan would stop him, or one of the two on either side of him. If he tried to get away from the others Barnaby would be there. He didn't like this.
"WILD TIGER!" the furious doctors voice caused Kotetsu to take a step back, ready to flee. He backed into Nathan and the others moved closer to him. Kotetsu scowled as he realized they had purposely trapped him so he couldn't run away. "What do you call that?" the doctor continued on as she stormed forward and Pao-lin quickly moved out of her way. The doctor was small, but that didn't keep her from getting right up in Kotetsu's face. "I went in to see if you regained consciousness only to find you missing from your bed. You had the entire hospital in a frenzy!" she yelled. Barnaby turned a worried look to Kotetsu, wondering why she wanted to see if he had regained consciousness. He figured he could ask the others later. "Now come with me. I have to make sure you didn't injure yourself even more." she huffed. Kotetsu went to protest.
"Go with her Kotetsu." he said. Kotetsu sighed in a defeated way.
"Alright Bunny." he agreed. He then followed the small woman away, who continued to lecture him as they went.
"So you call him by his name now huh handsome?" Nathan asked. Barnaby turned towards the fire user in surprise.
"What?! When did that start?" Karina asked, sounding a little jealous according to the other heroes. Barnaby tried to think about that. He purposely called Kotetsu by his given name earlier to show him he trusted him again, but that time was accidental. He supposed he would be using the others name all the time now instead of the usual 'old man' or whatever else he felt like calling his partner.
"Maybe today?" Pao-lin suggested. Karina huffed.
"Why the sudden change? Is it because Jake is gone?" she asked. Nathan clapped their hands to get the girls attention, earning a grateful smile from the younger hero.
"Now now, questions like that can wait, we came to visit the boys and that's what we should do now that our friend is in the hands of the doctors." they said. The others nodded and they headed up to the private room the other heroes were in. There was a guard at the door to insure no unauthorized personnel went in. After checking their badges and seeing they were indeed the other heroes, the guard moved aside and allowed them in.
"Oh, you all came." Ivan said as they entered. The room was large, containing three beds. The bed closest to the door held Keith, the middle bed held Antonio, and the third bed was empty. Ivan sat in a wheel chair by the door, giving them the impression that the empty bed must have been Kotetsu's.
"Of course we did." Pao-lin said with a smile.
"Thank you. And again, Thank you!" Keith said with a smile from his bed, raising his hand in a greeting. Antonio nodded at the others but turned a hard glare onto Barnaby. The younger heroes looked between the two, wondering what exactly what was going on. Nathan however sighed. They knew better then anyone how close Antonio and Kotetsu was.
"Where's Kotetsu?" Antonio asked. He was glaring at Barnaby and his voice made the question sound more like he was daring Barnaby to answer him.
"He's with the doctor." Nathan said. Antonio nodded, but did not look away from Barnaby.
"What happened to him?" Barnaby decided to ask. From the look he received back all the heroes could tell that was the wrong thing to ask the enraged bison at the moment.
"As his partner shouldn't you be the one who already knows that?" he snapped. They all knew what happened between the two was both Kotetsu and Barnaby's fault, but Antonio would of course side more with Kotetsu then Barnaby. Barnaby knew if he wanted to get any answers he had to appease the older hero.
"You're right, I should. I know he made me angry but that was no reason to not even check on his condition after he fought with Jake. I'm sorry." he said. Antonio continued to glare at him.
"Handsome and Kotetsu have already made up." Nathan said, being the voice of reason once again. Antonio seemed to look over Barnaby for a few more seconds, as if assessing if he should believe the man was sincere. Then appeased, he nodded.
"Kotetsu accidentally kicked Jake when his hundred power ran out. Because of that Jake really did a number on him. He was taken to the ICU right when he arrived and was in surgery all night. They brought him in here this morning. He woke up just after your fight with Jake started. He wanted to go help the others with taking down the exo-suites but we convinced him to stay in bed. After Jake told you he had a second power Kotetsu figured out what it was and decided to go help you." the tone Antonio used told Barnaby he was still a little mad at him.
"I see." Barnaby said.
"It was incredible. Mr. Tiger used his hundred power to make a complete recovery." Ivan said.
"Really? You guys can do that?" Pao-lin asked turning to Barnaby along with the other heroes. Barnaby paused at that. That didn't make much sense to him. While he had never even known that they could focus the power on healing, it would only magnify his healing ability by a hundred for five minutes. At that math it should only have boosted his healing by half a day, not enough to actually recover any of the real damage that Jake had to have done to him to put him in the ICU.
"That doesn't make any sense." he voiced his concern. Antonio nodded.
"I know." he said. The other heroes turned to him now in surprise.
"What do you mean Bison? We saw him." Keith said in protest. Antonio smirked.
"That guy has always been good at pretending he was fine, even if he wasn't." he said. That caught a few by surprise.
"So he was still seriously hurt." Ivan realized. Antonio nodded. He was surprised the others hadn't seen through it, although he was sure if Nathan had been their then they would have too. It seemed the only two that could see right through Kotetsu's bullshit all the time was the two of them, and even then Kotetsu still managed to pull a fast one on them every so often.
"You seem to know a lot about Tiger." Karina said. Pao-lin and Ivan nodded.
"Is it because you two became heroes at around the same time?" Keith asked. The others seemed to think that was a good enough answer.
"Actually it's because they went to high school together." Nathan spoke up. The others were surprised. They had never known of an instance where heroes were friends before they had any hero training together. Antonio nodded.
"Well sort of. We went to different schools, but they were pretty close to each other." he said. The others moved a little closer.
"What happened? How did you meet?" Pao-lin asked. They were all curious now and Antonio didn't see the harm in telling them. They did tell Nathan most of the story at the bar one night so it whouldn't be a problem.
"Well when we were kids heroes were still a fairly new thing, and NEXT were still not well received." he said. Nathan frowned and Antonio knew it was because of some bad memories. Antonio knew him and Kotetsu had gotten very lucky when they had supportive families. "Many of us had a hard time getting around. In my case the whole school knew I was a NEXT so I wasn't very well liked. I did have a bunch of boys who liked my power and followed me around a lot." Antonio said, a smile forming at the old memories.
"So you ran a gang." Keith surmised. Antonio shrugged. That was pretty much what it was.
"I enjoyed fighting and I was undefeated, then one of my boys told me of a boy in a nearby school who was also pretty tough. That was Kotetsu. I thought it's be fun to fight him, so I sent him challenges all the time, but he refused every one." Antonio said.
"That sounds like Tiger. It wouldn't fit the image of a hero to get in meaningless fights." Ivan said. Antonio chuckled.
"Did Tiger even like heroes at the time?" Karina asked, curious. Antonio nodded.
"Yeah, he was obsessed with them, especially Mr. Legend. Apparently when Kotetsu was still a kid he was involved in a bank robbery. The robber took him hostage when Mr. Legend arrived to rescue everyone. Kotetsu accidentally used his NEXT and defeated the robber allowing Mr. Legend to save everyone. Kotetsu had been afraid of his NEXT, but Mr. Legend told him he could be a hero with it." Antonio said. The others smiled, thinking about the incident with Tony.
"That's right, he did something similar with that boy." Barnaby voiced what they all were recalling. Antonio nodded.
"Anyway that wasn't the only reason he wouldn't fight me. Apparently his class Representative, Tomoe, always got on his case for fighting, even though most of those were punks picking on him." Antonio laughed.
"I'm surprised you still remember their name." Keith said.
"She is important to the story." Nathan said with a smile. The others were surprised.
"Wait, you know this story?" Pao-lin asked. Nathan nodded.
"Anyway one of my boys got mad that Kotetsu refused to fight me. He saw Kotetsu and Tomoe always arguing together and assumed they were a couple, so he kidnapped Tomoe and told Kotetsu I did it. I didn't know anything about it. Kotetsu showed up and said he'd fight me, so we had a brawl. I was surprised because he didn't even react to me being a NEXT. During the fight he asked where Tomoe was. That's when we figured out what happened. Both Kotetsu and me beat up all the idiots for that." Antonio said.
"What happened to Tomoe-san?" Ivan asked, excited. Antonio could see Nathan was listening more attentively now. They brushed off most of the stuff with Tomoe when they told him.
"Yeah well, the warehouse she was in caught fire. Kotetsu charged in using his NEXT to save her. Surprised the hell out me, I had no idea he was a NEXT. When I asked him why he didn't use it against me he said a hero only uses their NEXT to save people." Antonio laughed. The others did too, realizing that was for sure Kotetsu.
"What happened to her later?" Nathan asked, recalling how Kotetsu had went to tell him something else about the woman but then shut down afterwards. Antonio gave them a fond smile.
"Well it turns out Tomoe was a huge hero fan too. Her and Kotetsu started to hang out after that, and since I came around a lot to try and finish the fight we started the three of us just became really good friends. At some point Kotetsu's desire to become a hero became mine too. Tomoe supported both of us in that and even gave us our hero names." Antonio said.
"That's so cool!" Pao-lin said.
"Her and Kotetsu actually got married." Antonio added. Then the atmosphere changed. The others recalled what happened to Kotetsu's wife, how she died of an illness three years ago. Antonio shifted, not having meant to brought the room down.
"I don't need any help!" they could all hear Kotetsu's annoyed voice float into the room. Antonio smirked as Barnaby slammed his palm onto his forehead over his stubborn partner. The door opened and Kotetsu came into the room with an orderly. He was helped to his bed and told to set before the other left. Kotetsu huffed in annoyance.
"Hey, you know they cut the feed last night." Antonio said. The others looked at him in confusion, wondering why he would bring that up. Kotetsu sighed.
"Yeah I know, I haven't had a chance to call yet." he said. They looked back in forth in confusion again until they recalled the other fact they learned the day they learned about Tomoe. Kotetsu had a daughter. She probably just watched her father get torn apart on television only to have the feed pulled and no news on his condition. It must have been horrible for her to watch, and it only made matters worse that her mother was already gone! She must have had a rough night.
As if on cue Kotetsu's phone lit up and started buzzing. Kotetsu winced a little before hitting the answer button. "Mura..." he started.
"Shut up and listen." a male's voice cut him off. The other heroes jumped at the aggressive voice. "Do you have any idea what last night was like for us? When they cut the feed last night we thought you were killed Kotetsu! Mom called every one she could think of hoping to get some kind of news about what happened, and no one would tell us a thing. We spent the whole night wondering if you were even alive! Then you just causally show up at Barnaby and Jake's fight this morning! Did you even get permission to leave the hospital? I'm assuming not since you were bleeding everywhere." the man went on.
"Muramasa..." Kotetsu tried again.
"I'm not finished. Were you even thinking Kotetsu? Why didn't you call us this morning? If you were fine enough to rush out to the battlefield then you could have sent your family a message saying you were still alive. You about took ten years off mom's life." the man went on. Kotetsu looked sadder then most of the other heroes had ever seen him. They felt the need to defend him, but didn't know if they should since they didn't know who was calling.
"Where's mom?" Kotetsu asked, cluing the others in on the identity of the other man.
"She's with Kaede. She wanted to celebrate Barnaby's victory so they went to get ice cream. Kotetsu if you die and leave Kaede an orphan I will never forgive you." the man said. Kotetsu didn't say anything. "Tell that idiot Antonio to get better, I'm sure he's nearby." Antonio had a cheeky smirk spread over his face at that. "Call mom when you get a chance." the man added before giving a heavy sigh. "We are glad you're safe." he said, then the line went dead. Kotetsu stared at the phone, the others not knowing what to do or say. That was until Antonio burst out into a hysterical laughing fit, earning horrified looks from the others.
"He really gave it to you this time didn't he?" he asked. Kotetsu actually started laughing too.
"Yeah, guess he did huh. Shows not matter how old you are big brothers will still yell at you when they get a chance." he laughed. The others were surprised to hear Kotetsu had a big brother. Antonio and Kotetsu seemed to calm down a few seconds later.
"Uhm Tiger-san...is Kaede your daughter by chance?" Ivan asked. Kotetsu looked up at them, seemingly just remembering the others were there.
"Huh? Oh yeah." he confirmed. They all wondered why his daughter would be out celebrating when she hadn't known what kind of state her father was in, but they didn't want to ask.
"Guess she's still a big fan of Barnaby then huh." Antonio said. Kotetsu nodded.
"Yeah, she asks for a lot of Bunny's merchandise every time I talk to her." Kotetsu said. Then he stood up.
"What are you doing?" asked Keith in alarm. They already suspected Kotetsu might try and leave the hospital again before he was released, but this was too soon.
"I'm going home." he said, sounding like it should have been obvious. The others were surprised by how honest he was.
"You can't go until you've been discharged!" Barnaby argued. Kotetsu nodded.
"Yeah, that's why I'm going to fill out the paperwork now." he said. He walked out of the room, headed toward the main desk. He planned on coming back and talking to Antonio when the others weren't around, but right now he had something else he wanted to do. Barnaby was using his name now. Barnaby had finally accepted him as his partner, and for that he needed to celebrate.
Meanwhile in the hospital room the others looked at Antonio. "Mr. Bison, do you know..." Pao-lin started.
"Why Kaede is celebrating?" he finished her question. The others nodded. Antonio sighed. "Yeah. Kaede doesn't know that Kotetsu is a hero." he said. The others were stunned.
"What?!" they asked. Antonio nodded.
"Well you know Kotetsu, it's the whole a hero doesn't reveal his identity to anyone and all. Besides it was a decision he and Tomoe made together. They didn't want Kaede to know in case something happened while he was on the t.v. and she was watching. They didn't want her to worry." he said. The others looked unconvinced.
"How wouldn't she know when her dad leaves randomly for work?" asked Keith. Antonio sighed again.
"It's because she doesn't live with him. She leaves with Kotetsu's mom and brother back in our hometown." he said. The others felt horrible about that. Pao-lin felt a kinship with this girl as she was not only closer to Pao-lin's age, but she could understand how it feels to be separated from her parents and relying on others they shouldn't have to.
"I see. I thought she would be Handome's fan because he was her father's partner." Nathan mused. Antonio shook his head.
"No. She likes him for a different reason." Antonio said. Karina nodded.
"I'm not surprised, most young woman like Barnaby." she said. She herself didn't fall into that category, but she knew most of her friends loved both Barnaby and Blue Rose. Antonio shook his head.
"No, it's because Barnaby saved her." he said. Now the others looked confused.
"When did I do that?" Barnaby asked. He couldn't imagine someone like Kotetsu standing aside and letting him save his own daughter, let alone not saying anything about it to him.
"It was your first day as partners. Kaede does competitive Ice Skating. Kotetsu was all worked up that day because she was going to skate and that NEXT boy went on a rampage." Antonio said. Barnaby thought about that day. Kotetsu had ran off without him when he realized that the boy was headed to the ice rink. He had saved most of the people before Barnaby had gotten there, but there was one young girl he was too late to save. Barnaby had arrived a few moments before hand and saved the girl at the last second for the points. Kotetsu had thanked him afterwards, something Barnaby didn't understand...until now.
"I see. It was the girl he thanked me for saving, that was his daughter." Barnaby mused out loud. The others looked down, just how could it feel to have two people that you treasure more than anyone and not be able to save them with your own hands, despite the hundreds you have saved?
"You know, I think Tiger is a lot stronger then people think." Pao-lin said. The others nodded in agreement, not really having much more to say on the matter.
"I think so too." Antonio agreed.
So I've been sitting on this forever and I probably was never going to publish it, but hell they just announced the new Tiger and Bunny project and what freaking better way to celebrate then publishing the story you've been sitting on forever. Kotetsu has always been my favorite, but I love all the heroes and can't wait to see what new content will be coming out for them!