Ruka was... scared. That was the easy way of putting it, anyway.
The not so easy was that she was terrified, because a few minutes ago she'd been in the Spirit world and saving Ancient Fairy Dragon, and after that she was helping her brother win their duel against Demak, and right now she was-
Well.
For one thing, she felt stronger. She wasn't weak any more, not like she had been before, and it'd be a hard push to say she couldn't make it through school if they got out of this alive.
But stronger wasn't going to help her when she felt, at the same time, an overwhelming sense of evil crushing down on her from all around.
The Earthbound Gods, she thought. They're still here, and the others are dueling...
It wasn't just that, though. And when Ruka was scared, Rua would do his best to protect her. But when it came to this, she was fairly sure that she couldn't just let him protect her, couldn't let him be her shield... things weren't that easy, and the kinds of things that would come after her now, she knew somehow, she knew that they wouldn't accept dueling as a means of fighting.
...
She didn't say anything, at first, almost hoping that it was going to go away if she ignored it long enough.
It didn't, and she learned to watch her grip when holding things, when hugging her brother or even just holding her cards, sometimes.
Rua wasn't stupid. He knew something was up, and he knew she was keeping something from him. They were twins, after all. Usually, they shared things like that.
She found herself talking to Aki more and more in the weeks following, asking her how she was planning to control her dueling, things that at first were strange, until Aki asked straight out if something had changed.
She'd hesitated, and - haltingly - explained.
Aki had her own demons to face, if not of the same variety, and she'd been known as a 'witch'... and it turned out now that the term hadn't just been a title born from her psychic powers.
The older redhead had listened intently as Ruka had recounted the feeling she'd had after the duel, and the past weeks. Had put a hand on the younger girl's shoulder, and offered comfort, even though it was fairly obvious she wasn't entirely sure how, or whether she was going about it right.
...
She still wasn't sure how to explain it all to Rua, who was getting more and more concerned, but it turned out all of her plans of how to break the news to him were in vain when something happened to change everything when they were on the way home from class one day.
It was winter - not quite December, but the nights were closing in on them earlier and earlier, with less daylight in the day. She hadn't thought, really, what impact this would have.
Others had. They'd seen the opportunity, and taken it.
One lunged at her, the other for her brother, and she acted without thinking - Rua wanted to step in between them, take the blow, but she wouldn't let him, and a small eleven year old girl knocked the older, bigger, non-human's arm out of the way, kicked out against his shins.
They were outnumbered, though, until she noticed a flash of white, and then suddenly there was dust everywhere.
They looked up, both twins still shaking and in shock, to find Jack glaring murderously at the remaining, before driving the thing he was holding - made of- wood? - home in his, its, chest, and it too became dust.
Jack still looked ready to kill something, but was at least trying to keep his infamous temper in check when he turned to them.
"You're all right?"
They nodded, but Ruka couldn't help but notice that his eyes lingered on her for just a moment more than her brother, narrowing slightly, before he straightened and nodded to himself.
"Come with me."
"Eh?"
They did so, but Rua wasn't alone in his surprise - she just hid it better, and she noticed in her silence how twitchy the Duelist was, how close of an eye he was keeping on their surroundings, how he was walking slower to make sure they could keep up.
"What were you even thinking, going out alone like that?"
"It's no different to what we normally do!" Rua shot back. "We're old enough to look after ourselves!"
"You aren't even fourteen!"
Ruka found herself looking down at her feet, hating the reminder of their absent parents. Who still weren't back from England and that business trip.
At least, that's what they'd said it was.
"And?!"
Just a month or two ago, and Rua wouldn't even have dreamed of talking back to 'the King' like this. But this was now. They'd been through so much, they were shaken, and... Jack wasn't even the 'King' any more.
"And," Jack grated out, "you nearly died there, and would have if I hadn't been passing by!"
They were heading towards the garage that Yuusei and Crow had been able to rent, and Ruka stared more intently than ever at her feet, and the pavement as she walked past it.
...
"So you're saying there's vampires out there? Those things, th-those things back there that went grr and poof," Rua was saying, making the necessary sound effects as he went, "they were vampires? And there's more?"
Yuusei nodded, as serious as he'd ever been. He'd even put down his tools for the discussion.
"It's one of the reasons Satellite was cut off. They realised that we were sitting right on top of a Hellmouth."
Jack snorted, still leaning against the wall.
"They thought they were saving the city from everything that came out of BAD, but they weren't. Things like that can swim, and they're just as happy in the city as they were in Satellite."
Now both of them were staring, horrified at the implications.
"But-" Rua turned to her. It was the first time she'd spoken since they'd been attacked, and she was sure the others were assuming it was just the shock. It wasn't. "Doesn't that mean it was still really dangerous in Satellite? Um, I mean... more than we thought..."
Yuusei nodded.
"We had to learn how to fight. Quickly. Some places are lucky enough to have a Slayer-"
"Slayer?"
Ruka tried to make herself small again.
"Mn. There used to only be one, supposedly, but..."
"Something like thirty or so years ago, something happened to make anyone with the potential become 'a' Slayer as soon as they're ready," Jack finished.
"Then why isn't there one here?"
Yuusei shrugged. Clearly, he didn't know.
Jack, though - Jack sighed.
"They tried sending someone over, but that was before Zero Reverse."
Yuusei's head snapped over to look at him, just as surprised as they were.
"Godwin," Jack continued, as though he hadn't noticed, "probably didn't think to tell too many people about his past as a Watcher. Freelance, after the Council was blown up, but still."
"I didn't know... that, about him," Yuusei said with a strange look on his face.
Jack shrugged this time, not meeting their eyes.
"It wasn't relevant. Until now."
"Ah..."
"When I saw Ruka holding her own. Against a vampire."
"Ah."
...
Later, when Rua had finished being first upset - why didn't you tell me, I'm your twin, your brother - and angry, and then excited over the new development, after he'd asked if there were any perks to being a vampire Slayer's brother, after he'd been told no, but that doesn't stop you from learning how to fight as well-
After the revelation that she, she who had been sickly and easily tired, would be learning how to fight, to hold her own against demons...
It had taken a while to get her head around that last one. She wasn't the kind who liked fighting. Not really. But this was to protect, wasn't it? And... if it was just another way of protecting what was dear to her, then it wasn't too different from how it'd been while she fought to save Ancient Fairy Dragon from the Minus Curse, and Demak.
Yuusei and Jack had both offered to help. As had Crow, later on.
She was still coming to terms with the fact that all of them had killed these things before, and so often, so many, to save their own lives, yes, but even so. They'd killed.
And they were fine with that.
They expected her to be fine with that.
She wasn't sure if she was yet or not, and it worried her that she thought she might have some part of her that was simply waiting for the rest to realise that there wasn't really any problem with it at all.
After all of that was said and done, while she was still getting to grips with things but had a handle on more than before, she found Jack.
She asked him what a 'Watcher' was, and what the Director had been doing here as one, and how he knew so much.
She'd realised afterwards how much that was to ask of him, but he'd just shrugged.
"There was a Slayer here before Zero Reverse," he admitted. Maybe, she thought, only because she was one, too. "Godwin said he was watching her when he was drawn into all of the other stuff."
"I... see."
"Hn!"
He'd turned away, and for a moment Ruka had thought that this was it, but then he put his coffee down again.
"She..." She looked back up at him intently, determined to make him understand that his saying anything at all meant a lot to her. "He told me she was my mother."
Ruka didn't know what else to say to that, so she didn't say anything.
...
AN: I remember that ages ago now I casually talked about a Buffy/5Ds crossover with a few of these elements, but a fair number I added just now. This was NOT originally going to be this long! But then the rest of the story was begging to be let out, so of course I had to write it all.
The thing about Jack's mother came as a 'let's throw it in', but you can either put that together with my usual 'Jack is Rudger's kid' or have it as a stand-alone. Either way, here's something else it might've been nice if Rex stayed around for.