Notes: For the gx100. Set just after the duel between Ryo and Fubuki in season two.
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A stranger.
Someone you do not know.
It was obvious that none of them knew Ryo, under his new alias 'Hell Kaiser', anymore. Least of all Fubuki. That had been made certain during their duel.
Sure, he'd put on a brave face, but everyone knew the truth of the matter. Everyone looked at him.
And because everyone looked at him they did not see the other side of the situation. Not as if it were even a possibility they'd consider there was another side to start with. Ryo was the stranger, not them.
But as he stood, watching them gather around the fallen form of Fubuki, he realised that they were all strangers. Not even referring to the Kenzan child that he was unfamiliar with. Each of them were no longer people he knew.
As much as he tried to stop it most of the time, for a moment his mind was shifted back to the cage. To the realisation that he was utterly alone. When they had not been there to help him out as they always were for each other. That was when they had exposed themselves to him as strangers. People he did not know.
It had hurt.
Fubuki had hurt him most of all. And this surprised him, because he thought that it would have been Shou who had hurt him most of all. But no. Every time these thoughts of the cage surfaced themselves the image of his best friend, the boy he'd ithought/i was his best friend, came forward. Clear as crystal in his mind, stinging him.
Why had he not been there?
…When he'd needed him anyway. He was here now. But Ryo did not need him anymore. This boy was a stranger, all those who surrounded him were strangers too. They stood with the wall of false friendship, watching him through eyes that suggested they did not know him anymore.
But the truth was the he no longer knew them, he no longer knew Fubuki. Though his eyes gave no hint of this to them.
So Ryo walked away from the stranger, and left to look for the best friend that was forever gone.