Kamen Rider Kuuga: Afterwards
chapter 1: Touchaku - Arrival
by K.Stonham
released 9th September 2007

It was an early summer day, the sky blue, the air warm and the cicadas just beginning their chirping, when Ichijou Kaoru exited the Nagano police station and stopped short, his attention immediately arrested by the smiling figure that leaned back against a parked motorcycle, arms crossed, waiting for him. Slowly, he felt his own smile blossom in reply as tension melted away, a weight he hadn't even known he'd been carrying lifted off his shoulders, letting him breathe again. With quick steps he crossed to where the other man was standing.

"Godai," he said in greeting.

"Hello, Ichijou-san," Godai Yuusuke replied, and there was light in his eyes again, light that had almost been extinguished the last time Ichijou had seen him, battered and bruised and boarding an airplane to the Americas at New Tokyo Airport... "Do you have time to get some lunch?"

"Yeah," Ichijou replied with a quick nod, not even needing to check his watch.

"Great! I know this place..."

"In Tokyo?" Ichijou couldn't help asking.

Godai shook his head. "No. Here."

They ended up in a Chinese eatery that Ichijou hadn't known about, and true to Godai's word the food was good. "So where have you been the last five months?" he asked. He already knew a little bit; he kept in regular contract with Sawatari and Minori and they'd fed him details from Godai's letters to his sister, but it was different hearing it from the man himself.

"Just wandering. Mexico, mostly," Godai replied nonchalantly. "I climbed some of their pyramids, wandered the beaches. Ah, I got something for you." He set down the spring roll he'd been toying with and unzipped his battered black backpack, digging around in it. He finally produced a small cloth-wrapped bundle and held it out to Ichijou, who took it. "Souvenir of Mexico," he said proudly.

Curious, Ichijou unfolded the soft white handkerchief to reveal a thick silver bracelet set with turquoise and red and gold stones he didn't recognize. There was a stylized bird etched into its surface. It was exotic without being ostentatious. "Thank you," he said.

Godai was grinning. "I saw it and it somehow reminded me of you, Ichijou-san. The man who makes them taught me how to inset gems into silver like that."

"This being skill number...?" Ichijou inquired mildly.

"Mmm, if speaking Spanish is 2053," Godai mused, "then probably 2057?"

Ichijou suppressed a small laugh. "Thank you for the gift," he said again, and put it on his right wrist, where it was hidden neatly beneath his shirt sleeve. He looked out the restaurant's window, at Godai's bike where it was parked by his car. "New bike?" he asked.

Godai nodded. "Mine got wrecked going up against Number Three. I just got this one."

"You've been back a couple of days, then?" Ichijou asked. And, "You could have kept the BeatChaser. I don't think anyone would have minded." Other than a few penny-pinching bureaucrats, he mentally grumbled. Godai had certainly earned the bike.

"I got back yesterday," Godai said with a half shrug. "The BeatChaser wasn't mine, though, was it? And I didn't need it."

"Yeah, I guess so," Ichijou replied with a smile. What else should he expect from a man who took off for other countries and continents with nothing more than a backpack, a smile, and a few hundred yen in his pocket? Possessions were surely like water in a stream to Godai; to be held onto for a while, then let go.

He didn't try to hide his fear from himself, that Godai's smile alone someday might not be enough to keep him from getting hurt in one of those far-off countries where he had no friends and no family to help him, but... no, Godai was Kuuga, and any sort of fears that Ichijou might have on that score were foolish. He had to trust Godai, and keep doing his best himself. After all, Godai had been adventuring off in foreign lands long before Ichijou had ever met him, his father's apparent wanderlust blood flowing through his veins as well. "Working at the PorePore again?"

"Mm!" Godai gave a positive nod. "Nana-chan's got a leading role in a play so she can't be there as much so I'll be helping out more. Oyassan says that he's counting on me not to go running off all the time from now on."

This time Ichijou didn't try to stifle his laugh. "That shouldn't be a problem anymore, I'd think."

"Yeah." Godai didn't say anything for a long moment, then a gentle smile stole across his face. "I really am glad to have met you, Ichijou-san... and it's good to be back home."

Watching as Godai rounded a corner on his bike and disappeared behind a building, Ichijou smiled and already felt a little wistful. It was silly, he acknowledged to himself, getting into his car. For months he'd just wanted Godai to be well and happy again, whether he was in Japan or traveling the world. Slowly that wish had transmuted into something more subtle, into a sense of missing Godai's bright presence and wondering when he would be coming home. And now that he was in Japan, Ichijou was missing him because he was in Tokyo, only a few hundred kilometers away? "Don't be stupid," he told himself, keeping an eye on traffic. Godai had other friends to visit, people who would be equally happy to know he was back.

He hadn't been that impressed by the happy-go-lucky adventurer when they'd first met, Ichijou admitted to himself. Godai had seemed flighty and idiotic, probably the last person in the world Ichijou would have thought would be a good candidate to receive Kuuga's powers. But somehow Godai had been exactly the right person to wear the belt and its armor. The year they'd spent working together to defeat the Unknowns, the Grongi, had slowly stripped away everything he'd initially thought about Godai, leaving Ichijou with the understanding that he and Godai were exactly alike in far too many ways. Once Godai was committed to something, he saw it through to the bitterest end, no matter the cost to himself. Much like Ichijou.

In a strange way, receiving Tsubaki's call telling him that Godai had died was the worst moment of Ichijou's life, worse even than the call on his tenth birthday letting him know that his father wasn't going to be coming home ever again. Only Kuuga's belt, with its Amadam stone, had forced Godai's body into a state of suspended animation while it repaired the damage Number 26-A's poison had done. The overwhelming rush of relief Ichijou had felt when he'd seen Kuuga again, in his weakest white armor form, tackling 26-A away from the police-- that they hadn't lost Godai-- that he hadn't lost Godai--

Ichijou parked the car in the police lot and turned it off, placing both hands on the steering wheel as he frowned to himself, thinking.

Once Godai had put down his commitment, Ichijou knew, there had been no stopping him, no going back. There had been no one to whom Ichijou had ever felt closer, that shared sense of determination something he'd never found even among his comrades in the police force. And Godai's enthusiasm, his energy, what the French-American Jean might call his "joie de vivre"... it made things real, possible. Anything might happen, if you only worked hard enough at it.

Ichijou pulled out his wallet, fished out the name card Godai had first given him. "A man who chases dreams. A man of 1999 skills. Godai Yuusuke." He sighed and wondered if mastering the Kuuga armor had counted as Godai's 2000th skill or not, and put the card back away, telling himself not to think so much as he exited the car.

Leaning into the curve as the motorway swept away toward Tokyo, Yuusuke smiled at the freedom of the road ahead of him. It had felt really good, seeing Ichijou again. He'd gone to Nagano nearly the first thing, after buying his new bike, partly wanting to give the bike a road test, but also just to see Ichijou smile. He knew he'd worried the man with the way he'd been when he'd left after defeating Daguba, but he hadn't thought to get his address to send him letters, and he'd been drifting around Central America since, never staying in one place long enough to send a letter to Minori asking for it and receive a reply back. He'd ended up just shrugging the matter off for the most part, not sure what he'd say in a letter to Ichijou that his sister and Sakurako wouldn't pass on to him anyway from the letters Yuusuke wrote to Minori.

Yuusuke accelerated slightly, passing a car, the sun warm on his back and wind fresh in his face. The weight of his backpack was slightly decreased, but he still had a mask in it for Sakurako's collection, and after visiting her and Jean at the university, he had plans to stop in at Minori's preschool and see if the children wanted to learn how to make pinatas. Then there was Doctor Tsubaki, and Doctor Enokida and some of the Tokyo police force he wanted to say hi to, and he wanted to see Kanzaki-sensei as well...

But Ichijou had come first. Which somehow felt right.

He wondered if Ichijou was coming to Tokyo sometimes to visit everyone. If not, Yuusuke thought, maybe he could descend on him some night, grocery bags in hand, and cook Ichijou a Mexican-style meal, using some of the skills he'd learned there.

Maybe, he thought, smiling, and accelerated further toward the future, toward Tokyo.

Jean looked up from his terminal as the office door opened, admitting a smiling person he hadn't seen in months.

"Yo," Godai greeted them.

"Godai-kun!" Sakurako shot to her feet and out from behind her desk, animatedly hugging her friend. "You're back! How are you?"

"I'm fine," he assured her, grinning, as Jean made his way out from behind his own desk, offering a handshake to his friend. "Well, the both of you look good! What's been happening while I've been gone? Any interesting discoveries? Oh, which reminds me!" He held up a finger and shrugged off his backpack, setting it on the coffee table and unzipping it. He rummaged for an instant, then pulled out a package, handing it to Sakurako. "A present from Central America!"

Sakurako unwrapped the gift and held it up before herself. It was a mask for her collection, red with wisps of white horsehair around the edges and white scorpions painted on the cheeks. "Godai-kun, this is..." she said, then stopped. She smiled at him. "It's really interesting! Where did you get it?"

"There was this little village..." Godai started, his eyes bright and gestures animated. Jean listened to the story interestedly, glad to see his friend back to his usual bright self again.

Minori watched as the children crowded around her brother, him laughing and talking and giving piggyback rides indiscriminately for a few minutes before he looked back up at her with a smile and a small wave. "I'm back, Minori," he said.

"Welcome home, Onii-chan," she replied, glad to see his smile bright and his eyes tranquil again.