a sort of lamentation on tasuku's thoughts as the purgatory knight and a member of disaster
He doesn't see colours.
Scream. Yell. Cry.
In his vision, it's all black and white.
Scream.
Nobody is moving.
Yell.
He's alone.
Cry.
Tasuku Ryuenji stares. He stares, and stares at the sunset over the mountains, at the buildings cast in an orange glow, at the looming shadows that make him flinch back because he's almost certain they're going to swallow him whole, body and soul.
But then he realizes, what is there to swallow?
He is the same Tasuku, the same boy cop wonder, and yet he is not the same Tasuku, he is not the same boy cop wonder. He's Tasuku Ryuenji, the Purgatory Knight, and a member of Disaster. He is a shell of his past, an empty cocoon without a butterfly emerging anytime soon.
It is a truth. It is a fact. It is what he has chosen to be.
Tasuku takes a breath, lets it linger, and exhales like it's a sigh. But it's not a sigh. He's trying, trying to see if there's a part of him that wants out of here, tries to see if there's a single area within his mind that says, Stop.
Nothing.
He gets nothing.
To say he is at peace, it would be a lie. To say he is at war, it would be a misunderstanding. He is not at peace nor is he at war. He is merely there, in the distorted grey world, merely an existence and a shell of who he was.
The wind blows and he feels his hair move slightly and he closes his eyes. He thinks of back then when he first used Future Force and how uncomfortable it felt to suddenly have long unruly hair. He remembers how Jack chuckled, saying he looked a bit ridiculous with the flowing hair like Rapunzel.
That's why I don't want you to care about me anymore, Jack!
It would save Jack the pain. It would save him the pain of seeing Tasuku doing this. If Jack would stop caring, it would put Tasuku at ease too, he thinks. If their ties could be broken, everything would be so much easier. But his words, his words from a long time ago comes back to bite at him.
Then Gao is there.
He clenches his fists, bites his lips, because why did Gao have to get involved in this?
Stay true to yourself.
He says that to Gao, he says that to Gao and he means it. Tasuku can change; he can change at the cost of his life. It's not okay for Gao to change. It's not.
Tasuku changes, sacrifices and twists himself, his life and his identity. He will do everything, willing to sacrifice anything if it means the safety of the future and world. If it means the safety of the people he knows, their happiness granted and their futures secured.
He's doing this because he knows nobody else will.
So he sacrifices himself, just one person, one kid to be the one that protects everybody. Because he knows that is what he is meant to do. Everyone else, everyone who is innocent, they all deserve the outcome of his doings. They all deserve the fun of Buddyfighting and the bonds they get to make with their Buddies and their rivals and their friends.
He doesn't need that. He doesn't want that.
(He does want that. He does.)
He is fine like this. He is fine without anything—without glory, without companionship, without anything but him and the shell he has of himself, an empty shell, one that echoes with whispers he wishes he could stop hearing.
He hears the voices of Jack, of Gao, of Stella, Mr. Takihara and Commander I and the voices of everyone else he knows by face but not so by name. He hears the distress in their voices, sees the worry on their faces and—No.
He is past that. He is past all of those who hold him back, who are his weaknesses. In the end, he is doing this for them. And they can deny it, they can say it's not right as much as they want but he knows better.
Sometimes doing the right thing means doing the wrong thing.
And that's why his world is now grey. There is no white, there is no black—there is no distinct good and there is no distinct bad. It's his distorted grey world, where he can only feel the weight inside of him and where he can only see his destiny in front of him.
He takes a breath and opens his eyes.
The dark of the night welcomes him and he steps back in surprise.
The sun has disappeared a long while ago, the literal sun and the Mighty Sun Fighter—both of them gone. Jack is gone too. This dark starless night makes him realize he's lost them all. He's lost them all.
He turns his back towards the horizon and walks away.
He has nothing. And he'll be fine. Because this is how it should be, him in the shadows doing what he wants to do the most—saving people, saving everyone—and receive nothing in return but everyone's smiles and happy faces when all of this is over.
This is how it always should be. This is how he wishes it to be.