The Same as Always
Maybe Shion was right about that.
A/N: Hello again everyone... welcome to a story I put together in a little over two days. It's a big collection of ideas I've had over the past few months that I can't stop thinking about now. I needed to get rid of them so I could finally do some homework. So, hope you enjoy the least edited one-shot I have ever published.
Disclaimer: I do not own Cardfight! Vanguard, along with any of the characters in it as well as the plot.
It wasn't until some time later that Chrono realized that maybe Kiba Shion hadn't died.
The last time he had seen the so-called regular Shion was that night on the overpass, when the blond had given one of his vague smiles before telling him and Tokoha to stop worrying about him.
Now that Chrono thought about it, maybe it wasn't the best idea to stop Tokoha from chasing after Shion. At least then they would have known what happened that night.
A new jacket couldn't be life changing, could it?
(Well, maybe it could be, but it wasn't that cold, and looking at the finer details on the sleeves Chrono could tell that the jacket wasn't even new.)
Whether or not it was because of the jacket, it was undeniable that the Shion who showed up at Dragon Empire that day was different. He and Tokoha knew that much at first glance, but there was no way they could have guessed how different their teammate was.
How ironic it was that Shion himself said that no matter what, he was never going to change.
Chrono knew that Shion had not been acting natural since the incident with Ace. Tokoha and he could feel it as soon as they saw him the Tuesday after the takeover.
The day after the event rumors were spread around the school like the common cold, each one worse and more unthinkable than the last. Chrono and Tokoha, who were regarded as Shion's closest friends, were subjected to relentless questioning.
While they really wished that they could give their classmates a proper answer as well as defend Shion's honour, the problem was that Shion himself hadn't told them anything besides replying with a "I'm fine. I'll contact you guys after school" to Tokoha's worried chain of texts.
For a person who always tried to help and reassure the people around him, this was very worrying behaviour.
The school bell couldn't have come fast enough. Both Chrono and Tokoha's phones vibrated 11 seconds after class dismissal.
"Come to my house," it said.
The invitation was so relieving that neither middle schooler bothered noting the rather uncharacteristic straight-forwardness of the text, nor the lack of the usual courtesy.
Swinging by his aunt's apartment to change and grab his bike (Shion's house was a few kilometres away and wasn't near public transportation), Chrono met Tokoha on the bridge and together they set out for Shion's gigantic estate.
Arriving at the gate, Tokoha didn't hesitate in pressing the doorbell, and Shion didn't hesitate in answering their arrival by opening the gate himself and leading his guests through the magnificent garden. However, neither of the teens following him paid any particular attention to the browning leaves of the trees nor the fragrance of the roses scattered throughout the landscape.
Upon a closer glance, Shion looked fine. A bit weary, but basically fine. He generally smiled the same, had the same sort of glint in his cerulean eyes, and made the same kind of small talk he used to. As Shion led the two through his garden, blond hair swaying in sync with the waning asters lined in the flowerbeds, Chrono and Tokoha exchanged a glance.
Shion was a worthy actor, but it was not nearly good enough to trick them.
As the front door came into view, the group met a large, beat-up moving truck. Before Tokoha could even open her mouth to ask, Shion swiftly cut off her unasked question.
"Don't worry, I'm not going."
The team helped Iwakura move the last of the boxes into a large truck. Then, as the truck drove away into the sunset, the teens stood motionlessly and stared.
"So," Tokoha began. Of course she'd be the one to break the silence, she was not a fan of them after all, especially between friends.
"Not that we would want you to leave, but why aren't you going with them, Shion?"
Shion turned back towards his friends and gave his usual smile, before indicating a few boxes still piled neatly by the door, which they had been instructed not to move.
"Well, if you follow me, I'll tell you guys why."
The three each strapped a box to their bicycle, and with Shion in the lead, rode to an old apartment in a suburb near their school.
Both Chrono and Tokoha took in the sight of a place that they thought should only be inhabited by the uneducated or people born into near poverty, and thought about how one of their best friends would be living there from now on.
Upon unloading the boxes, Shion set a cup of barley tea before his guests on a glass table that didn't really go with the rest of the random assortment of furniture in the room, sat at the sill of the open window, and began his story.
He looked out the window into the vermilion sky some of the time, but Chrono could tell from the slight, characteristic changes in his voice that he was trying to not let his self-blame and fury for this Ace person pour out. Maybe it was because of the yellow lighting of the room, but the look in the younger boy's eyes never slipped.
The more Chrono looked into that happy, determined gaze, the more he worried about how many emotions Shion kept locked up.
His behaviour, of course, was completely understandable. Shion had always been the type of person to not want others to worry about them (a trait that was shared by all three members of TRY3), which just made his friends worry more about him (a side effect of having said trait and being a part of TRY3).
However, unlike Tokoha, Chrono was not the type to force people to express their feelings so directly, at least not right away. If Shion wanted to fake smiles and pretend that his world was full of sunshine and rainbows for a while, so be it. Chrono was all for independence, so he believed that having Shion try to sort his own feelings out would be for the best.
That's what Chrono himself was used to doing, after all.
Besides, as social and talkative as Shion was, Chrono didn't think that this was the sort of thing that he would want to talk about. From seeing what the guy had been like back when he wanted to quit Vanguard, Chrono just didn't think that Shion would be honest with them. Or, even if he was, Chrono doubted that the talk would really help their friend.
Obviously, if Shion went too far in his considerations, Chrono would jump in to help more eagerly than Tokoha. He did have a long list of insults (newly updated) prepared after all, just in case.
Tokoha and he had talked it over after they left Shion's apartment. They would let Shion have his space, and then if he was still smiling far too often the next weekend, the two of them would intervene.
Although that was the agreement, Chrono could see why Tokoha kept on trying to violate it. The worry was bound to eat them alive some time soon.
Furthermore, Chrono would like to think that he sort of understands what Shion was going through. Okay, maybe not the self-blame portion of this whole catastrophe, but at least what it felt like to lose your everything in an instant.
At age four, his dad was his everything.
That may not compare to Shion's loss of his status practically at his own hands, but their respective losses of "everything" should lead to a similar feeling.
Obviously, since Chrono was four back then, the way that he had come to terms with the situation couldn't be the same way that Shion would end up dealing with it. Chrono himself had let that feeling take over his entire life. That accident forever altered his personality, sealing him off from his peers all the way until that faithful day that the Gear Chronicle units appeared in his locker and the Card Capital gang had pried into his life.
Shion was sociable, and above all, high logical. Chrono doubted that he would try to seclude himself, and even if he did, the other two members of TRY3 would never allow it.
However, the fact remains that they were not going to get the same Shion back. The Shion that emerges from this constant stream of phony smiles and repeated reassurances would not be the same one that had argued through forming a team with Chrono and Tokoha, the one who had tried to quit Vanguard, and the one who had defeated Shinonome Shouma.
It was like trying to pick a jellybean from a candy-filled wooden barrel. It's nearly impossible to figure out how many solutions there were, and no way to tell how Shion would choose to cope.
The only thing they could have done is to wait and see.
The storm that night had cleared up pleasantly by the morning, which was a blessing for the Dragon Empire G Quest. The turnout looked better than usual; the atmosphere was, in some unbelievable way, livelier than usual.
Then, he showed up.
Shion, donning that black jacket.
Now that Chrono looked back at that image, it wasn't the jacket that really caught his attention first. Yes, it was odd to see Shion layering such a casual jacket over his signature pristine button-up, but it was the hardness in his eyes that was truly startling.
Those azure irises, formerly holding the pride and nobility that made Shion who he was were now filled with this eerily mature resolve. The aura about the middle schooler now rivaled that of a determined young adult.
Shion blinked, probably noticing Chrono and Tokoha's gaping. A bit of his normal demeanor seeped out of his slightly puzzled gaze.
When Tokoha answered Shion's confusion in a tone of faint uncertainty, Chrono observed his friend. Although that only physical change was that black jacket, there was so much to take in about this changed Shion.
As Shion assured the two of them, although in a more nonchalant tone than they were used to and turned to walk to the registration table, Chrono couldn't help but exchange a gaze with Tokoha.
Had he been stricken by lightning last night? How else could such a change have happened in just a few hours?
Well, maybe they'd shake it out of him after the G Quest.
It was like Shion decided to ditch his own last name in pursuit of making said name mean something to him again. Chrono decided that he couldn't really call him Kiba Shion in the same way again. He just didn't uphold that Kiba side anymore, and instead built his personality more on what made him Shion, member of Team TRY3.
Tokoha mentioned how the usual Shion wouldn't have done the things that he did during that fight, but Chrono realized that this wasn't the case.
True, Kiba Shion may not have made that risky play, but this Shion? He was willing to throw in everything he had in order to win. He had enough ambition and resolution to pull that off.
This was the Shion without any burdens or any sort of barriers holding him back, but still utilizing the honed logical judgment that he had beaten so many players with.
This was what Shion would have been all this time, had he not been a Kiba.
Chrono and Tokoha, well, would have to learn to accept that. Not that Chrono really had a problem with that, as this Shion seemed a little bit, how should he put it, truer to himself.
The second realization Chrono had made during that G Quest was how Kai Toshiki was key to this Shion-personality-metamorphosis. That guy's appearance in the sunset after their victory left Shion more awkward than he had seen him in some time.
As the man walked into the dipping sun, with Shion honouring him with a bow (which left Chrono feeling pretty confused), Chrono couldn't help but wonder whether or not Shion would try walking into the sunset like that some day.
With Shion's highlighter-coloured hair, that ought to be pretty blinding.
All of that aside, Shion's gesture made it evident that Kai Toshiki was an important piece of the puzzle that was now Shion's personality. Chrono supposed that maybe Shion's problem wasn't one that could be solved by one person alone. Maybe Tokoha was right in trying to help him since the beginning.
Well, at the end of the day, at least Chrono could save that list for later.
The jacket mystery lingered in Chrono's head until Tokoha pulled him aside a few days later to wait for Shion in the stairwell. Apparently Mamoru had seen Shion dealing with the local yakuza or some other lowlifes, and Tokoha felt the need to confront him about it.
Shion met their confrontation with his usual assuring smile and dismissed their worries in his typical manner. He concluded that the Ace problem was his alone, and they needn't help him through.
Chrono supposed that Shion couldn't have learned nothing from spending his childhood around businessmen and politicians, for he was pretty darn convincing.
One thing was for sure: Shion certainly knew how to abuse their trust.
Tokoha mentioned that Shion, while still fundamentally the same, was harder to approach now. Chrono agreed, but something else was present on his mind—
The jacket.
Shion, who had worn light coloured clothing from the day they met, decided to put on a pure black jacket and alter his aura. What could that possibly mean?
Well, Kiba Shion, the heir to a prestigious family, couldn't possibly enter the dark allies of the city in pursuit of information. However, Shion, who had nothing to lose, could enter such a place and dirty that dark cloth.
That jacket was Shion's shield, which trapped the Kiba in him in order to draw out the true essence of Shion. That jacket allowed Shion to use his dormant guile and ambition in order to gain the knowledge he seeked.
That jacket put the wall up between Shion and his fellow members of TRY3.
How ironic it was that when Chrono wanted to help his friend, Shion decided to force everyone out of his life.
As the G Quests proceeded on, Shion seemed to gradually revert back to what he was like during the summer, with occasional relapses into the person that won against the gatekeeper back at Dragon Empire.
The most memorable of the relapses was the one in Star Gate, when Shion fought Kai Toshiki.
It was the first serious fight that Chrono had seen Shion fight since that match at Dragon Empire. It managed to catch his attention in the opening line.
"Stand up, the Vanguard."
Okay… Shion never used to say that.
The fight built up in intensity, both sides dealing damage every so often. Kai fought similarly to how he did against Mamoru all that time ago in Dragon Empire, and Shion stayed as calm as he usually did.
Then, that Legion came out.
And that's when that new light in Shion's eyes ignited once more.
See, Chrono knew that no sane person would have gotten knocked down like that and started laughing. No sane person hits 5 damage and just lies on the ground laughing. And if anything, they wouldn't laugh like being a pinpoint away from losing was something hilarious.
Chrono was sure that Tokoha was thinking the same thing:
Shion had lost it.
Then their friend got up, and proceeded to radiate that foreign confidence from his eyes. Slapping down cards in a passionate and purposeful yet composed manner, Shion demonstrated all that he was made of. He unleashed and controlled the lightning inside of him. No, it wasn't that Shion was now crazy, rather that he was now more intent on winning than ever.
Chrono supposed that he knew why Am started clapping in the end. Shion's fight was absolutely captivating.
In the end, Shion's loss meant that Chrono had to win. Chrono put away his thoughts about Shion for a while so that he could finally squeeze all the information that he deserved out of Ibuki, but that didn't mean that Chrono didn't remember the brilliance of Shion's will.
After that G Quest, it seemed that more of the personality that the jacket brought with it was fusing with Shion's original personality, until it came to a point where Chrono couldn't even find the so-called "relapses" anymore (which, the more he thought about it, weren't so much relapses as they were moments of passion).
The team won at United Sanctuary, and continued their win streak into the Dark Zone Quest to finish G Quest undefeated.
Then, the Ultimate Stage arrived and with it came Chrono and Shion's big reveals.
Chrono sort of felt sorry for Tokoha that day, who was the only one not to have a secret to divulge to the group. While Chrono's own story was a bit predictable, Shion's revelation was totally unforeseen.
Well, maybe that was the case for Tokoha, who was closer to Rummy Labyrinth than her teammates were, but Chrono already suspected something.
It was that day during the Dark Zone quest, when Tokoha decided to delegate for them on the first floor so that the team would stand a chance at winning that Shion had presented him with a hint.
After carefully avoiding as many fighters as possible on the second floor, the two had made it to the third floor without too much trouble. Upon their entrance, they heard Am of Rummy Labyrinth fighting down the hall.
Chrono had felt relieved. The fact that they could finally sense them signified that TRY3 had finally caught up to the idol group and had a shot at winning. However, Shion seemed a little bit wary about this development.
As the blond turned to face Chrono, his blue eyes locked with surprised green ones.
"Chrono. There's something I need to take care of. I'll try to clear the path for you, so just make sure you get up to the top."
If that was Shion's attempt to unsuspicious, he failed miserably at it.
But, Chrono knew that the look in Shion's eyes meant that he was not going to take no for an answer, so he proceeded to give the taller boy a nod.
Shion turned and walked towards the voices of Rummy Labyrinth as Chrono watched his retreating figure. Chrono know that if Shion offered an excuse like that, he was bound to explain himself some time soon.
Now then, the real question was how the heck Shion had gotten that information in the first place.
There was no other way to say it: their opponents for the Ultimate Stage were indeed very ultimate.
And of course, the results of this match ultimately decided their future. Therefore, Team TRY3 could not afford to lose a single fight, as much of a challenge as that may be.
Chrono let out a deep sigh of relief as a sixth damage ended Tokoha's fight in her victory. One down, two more to go.
Tokoha arrived back into their little room, signaling congratulations all around. After the mini celebration ensued, Tokoha turned to Shion.
"Shion, this isn't going to be any ordinary fight, it will be more like—"
"A message? Yeah, I figured so."
Chrono glanced at the boy, who was cautiously shrugging out of the black jacket. He then carefully draped the garment over a chair after folding the thick black cloth.
"The last rematch, huh?" Shion remarked, pulling out his deck.
Chrono didn't even question the wording of that, as odd as it sounded to him. No, he was more interested in the now jacket-less Shion. It was nostalgic to see his classmate wearing the same type of clothing he had when they first met. A plain white dress shirt and gray slacks, an outfit that represented cleanliness, professionalism, and brightness.
Shion must have noticed Chrono's gaze because he then stated with a smile, "I'm going to win this match no matter what. Besides, I need to properly repay the favour this time.
"I swear it on the name of Kiba Shion."
At that moment, Chrono started to wonder about his previous theories of Shion changing forever, and decided that maybe what Shion had said in his apartment that first day had been right all along.
Kiba Shion hadn't truly changed, his same personality traits were simply amplified. The jacket, which was his cocoon more than a shield, helped him realized how to do that. Now that he took it off, Shion was a stronger, better version of his former self.
Maybe Kiba Shion hadn't died that day he put on that black jacket.
Indeed, maybe on that day, Kiba Shion decided to come to life.
Okay, thanks for reading! Wishing everyone the best as always!
-Eclairia