Gimme a break. It was almost midnight when I got the idea for this. I've been listen to a mix of One Piece music and Halestorm ever since.

. . .

Tsubasa runs his hand through his hair. Decades had yet to change its (albeit unusual) color, and he can proudly boast of his locks thinning only a little. Only Kyoya, Zyro, and Shinobu could say that after sixty years. Yu also had bragging rights, but like so many others, he was dead.

Frankly, the old bladers had been dropping like flies. Three years ago Gingka Hagane kicked the bucket. It shocked everyone to the core. One day, he was laughing with his great-grand kids, the next, his heart just . . . stopped. Tsubasa remembers clearly, even through cataract-impaired sight, that even Kyoya Tategami's eyes were streaming at the funeral. Of course Kenta and Madoka took it the hardest, but with Kyoya silently crying, you can only imagine how they were faring.

Speaking of which, Madoka Hagane, formerly Madoka Amano, passed merely a week ago. Tsubasa went to her funeral yesterday.

There were less tears that time . . . not because she was less loved than her husband, but because the people gathered there were starting to come to terms with a certain fact: Hagane's generation of bladers was old. They were sick, had more wrinkles and scars then they would care to admit, and were more than ready to leave this Earth.

But Gingka and Madoka weren't the only ones to go. Benkei, Yu, Hyoma, Maru, Nile, Kira, Sakyo, Zeo, and many, many others were wandering around the Pearly Gates, waiting for their friends to get off their butts and catch up.

That's why, after Madoka's funeral, Tsubasa made a pact with the few companions he had left. That day, they got identical bracelets. Every last one of them. Each said the same thing: "Do not Resuscitate."

They were tired, and their patience was worn thin. It was more than obvious that Kyoya would have downed a bottle of sleeping pills years ago if he didn't have a sickly wife to take care of. But Hikaru came first. The Lion's rematch in eternity with Hagane could wait half a decade or so. Tategami would hang on as long as his wife would, but not much longer than that.

Tsubasa chuckles, feeling pity for Gingka. Kyoya would fly to his reward with a scream and a roar. Pegasus wouldn't stand a chance.

. . .

Suddenly, Otori is knocked out of his revelries by a sharp gust of wind. He takes a hair tie from his pocket and wraps it around his now longer-than-necessary mane of white. Old men tend to get lazy, but Tsubasa had simply erased the thought of going to the barber from his head. Frivolous, expensive, and he always looking like a lamp shade afterwards.

As Zyro had been so kind as to point out to him.

Or, maybe, something in Tsubasa just wants the old Yu to come up and give his ponytail a good ol' yank.

On second thought, maybe not. Otori's too old to be mixed up with the occult.

While he's on that topic (sort of) the WBBA Prez thinks about why he's sticking around. There isn't a particular reason to stay. Perhaps its he just doesn't want to give the company bad PR by killing himself. Wouldn't exactly be a sparkling sentiment in the papers, would it? Or he just can't stand the thought of his friends looking down from heaven, and BAM they see Tsubasa Otori OD'ing on sedatives. Yu would never let him hear the end of it.

And it IS eternity he's talking about. . .

The Prez sighs tiredly. He'd fallen recently and was still limping on his left. Tsubasa's an old man. Would it kill God to kill him already? What purpose does he have left in this world? Maybe he should commit a passive form of suicide . . . like regularly eating those "triple beef burgers" Gingka loved so much.

Ugh . . . no. Just no. (Tsubasa had gone vegan decades ago. Reportedly, Hagane's diet drove him to it. He's now regretting the extra time it bought him.)

. . . .

The autumn chill seeps through the blader's light jacket, and he instinctively pulls it closer, then tightens the scarf his daughter had knit especially for him. It was a deep violet, and they had been constant companions. (Since his body temperature had been out of whack lately.)

A blood red leaf dropped lazily to the ground. It reminded the Prez how good he had it.

Hikaru was cancerous, and it had metastasized in her brain. Three days ago, she had decided on her own, despite Kyoya's loud disapproval, she wouldn't fight it. Doctor gave her a couple of months, tops.

But Tsubasa had seen the look in her eyes-the all-too-familiar "I'm ready" smile. He gave her a week.

Kyoya, of course, would follow suite, one way or another. He was a stubborn SOB, no denying that. Probably the only way he got Hikaru to accept his proposal in the first place.

She was a lucky girl.

Feeling another bit of his heart crack at the thought of losing another friend, Tsubasa continues walking. He takes note of every car that passes, paying more attention to the ones going over the speed limit. He was honestly ashamed of this habit, but really, Otori was going insane with boredom. He'd retired from blading, swapping it for tutoring the local kids, but it could never replace the feeling of power. Of raw, undeniable freedom. He dearly missed being able to talk to Earth Eagle as well.

CRASH!

Glass explodes behind the 67-year old. The ex-blader whirls around with a grace not even age could strip from him. A man in a black hockey mask and hoodie jumped through the broken window. He carried a sack of stolen goods . . . and a gun.