Disclaimer: I don't own Kamen Rider.
Author's Note: I love Ryuki. Seriously love Ryuki. Here's my take on what was going on in the last episode, so massive spoilers for the ending arc. Enjoy!
Wish
It isn't right.
This isn't the way things are supposed to go. He's not supposed to be the last one. He's not supposed to outlive Shinji. Shinji's not the better fighter, but he's the better man, and sometime over the last two months Ren came to terms with the fact that he couldn't kill him. Asakura, Toujou, Odin, maybe even Kitaoka, but not Shinji. He even saved Shinji, dragged him away from the Monsters in the Mirror World when Shinji's damn morals were screwing him over.
Knelt at Shinji's feet, and was considering letting him kill him minutes before that.
And it doesn't make a bit of difference, because Kido Shinji's dead in his arms. Dead and smiling and telling him to live, and he's so tired of all this. So fucking tired of it all. Leaning against the car, he watches Shinji, but the man doesn't move. Isn't ever going to move again, just like Yui, just like Eri if something isn't done.
The power to grant a wish. The power to save a life.
He doesn't need the chimes of the Mirror World or Kanzaki's urging to bring him to his feet.
It doesn't hurt yet. Or maybe hurts too much. Did there come a time when you broke enough that it didn't matter anymore? A time when you didn't even want to scream, didn't want to do anything but keep going?
Momentum. Maybe he's just living off momentum now, doing what he's always done, what they've always hated him doing. Fighting, and Eri doesn't like it when he shows up on her doorstep with fresh scrapes and bruises, refuses to listen to him when he says it's a damn good way to pay the bills. Killing, and though she knows why he's supposed to do it Yui still tells him no, tells him not to, and he listens to her.
Finishing the Rider War, though Kido Shinji wanted nothing more than for all the fighting to stop.
No. He certainly wanted all the fighting to stop, but Kido wanted more. He wanted them all to be happy and healthy and safe, a world with no reason for the War. An idealist's dream, a fool's dream, but Shinji was a fool.
The best people always were.
But good people didn't last. Good people died. People who loved, people who protected, were used, broken, discarded, and died. Shinji never would have made it as long as he did in Ren's world.
Shinji didn't make it very long in Ren's world.
Just like Yui.
Just like Eri.
Just like him now, maybe, because he's not fit for this war anymore either. Oh, he'll fight with all he has. He'll struggle to live, because Shinji asked him to and because Eri needs him to. Because Yui doesn't want to live with all that blood on her hands, so Kanzaki winning would be pointless. Because he's the last chance anyone has for any of their dreams to come true.
Because he's a stubborn bastard, start to finish, and he knows it.
It doesn't matter, though, because stubborn people die. Good people die. And he's going to go down swinging, but he's going down. Odin's made sure of that.
He should try to guard. Try to dodge. Summon DarkWing as a shield, maybe, as the puppet Rider slots his Final Vent card into place.
Instead he screams and charges. Hopefully Kido will forgive him for the stupidity of the move when they meet again, but it's all he really has left in him to do.
It shouldn't have worked.
Acts like that, born of courage and desperation, didn't work, not in real life.
But Odin's gone, he's still—barely—standing, and the power floats there, ready for him to claim it.
Ready for him to use it, and he almost does. Two years searching for this, yearning for this, knowing just what he wants to do with it, and he almost lets it go out of reflex. Almost wastes his chance, but not quite.
The power's his, to do with as he wishes, and what he wishes right now is for it to wait. Wait until he's ready, because there's someone he needs to see before he can let it go.
It's hard to contain the power. It burns inside him, bright, brilliant, beautiful, and absolutely desperate to be gone from him. Scouring his mind, his heart for a wish, but he won't let it go yet. Can't let it go yet.
One step in front of the other, though it hurts. A dull, aching, deep pain, and it's almost too easy to shove it from his mind. To concentrate on the power, to focus on what he's doing, and it should hurt more. With the way things are shifting in his chest with each breath, the weakness he can feel creeping through his body, it should hurt more. Not that he's complaining. Or scared.
Not scared. Not of dying, if that's what this is, and the power leaps toward that with unrestrained glee. It would be simple to restore him, child's play, and then it could be gone. Back to what it's supposed to be, not bounded by human emotions, ambitions, desires, but he won't let it go. Not for that. Never for that.
He never cared if he survived the Rider War, anyway, as long as Eri lived.
One step in front of the other, and he's in the hospital, almost there. So close, and he's not going to weep or even bother slowing down just because someone was enough of a bastard to put stairs in his way. Just keep going, keep moving, and he'll be there soon.
Right foot, and he'll get to see Eri again.
Left foot, and he did what Shinji asked. He lived, when he should have died, and he has the power to prove it to the man.
Right foot, and if Yui's strong enough to disappear, to vanish, he's strong enough to hold this power until he's ready to use it.
Use it like it should be used, though it goes against everything he's ever believed is true in life.
He doesn't let himself fall across Eri's bed, because if he does he's afraid he won't be able to get back up. Planting his feet as firmly as he can, he gently picks up her hand, slipping the ring he's carried for the last two years back into place.
"I did it." He speaks quietly, voice just rising above the background noise of the life-support machines. "I won, Eri. I can save you."
She doesn't respond. He didn't expect her to, not really.
It would be so easy to make her respond. Just a few words, a loosening of his hold on the power, and she'll be his again. Together, just the two of them, with no one else in the world that he trusts or cares about.
His hand is shaking as he brushes it against her cheek, against her hair. "We're all the other has, right?"
It was why he accepted the deck. Why he kept fighting, when everything went to hell and all he really wanted to do was curl up somewhere and scream. Why he could never give up, no matter how Kido Shinji begged.
The power strains against his grip, reaching for her, and it would be easy to let it go. So easy.
"But I can't." He kisses her forehead, gently. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. But they're such good people, Eri. Wonderful people. You would like them. Did like them, I guess, but you'd like them more if we could… if we could…"
If he could take her home, to a place where people know him and care about him and he was actually starting to put down roots. He dreamed about it, sometimes. Her clinging tight to him as they pull up on his motorcycle, and everyone's sitting down to dinner. Shinji being an idiot, and Yui being her usual welcoming self, and Yui's grandmother staring with that mixture of suspicion and fondness that she reserves just for him.
"I wanted that, Eri." A tear falls onto her face, and he reaches up slowly to find his face wet. "They did that to me. Made me want that. Think I could have that. Which is why I can't just save you. I'm sorry."
Her hand doesn't tighten around his; he doesn't hear her voice giving a soft affirmation. But her lips are turned up, just a little, in what might be a smile.
He straightens, though it makes the world tilt. Something's broken, in his chest, something besides his heart, but that doesn't matter.
All that matters is getting his wish, the thing he wants with all of his soul.
"Make Yui and Shinji's dreams come true."
It fights him at first, because this isn't the type of wish it was meant to follow. The power of a god, but it follows the rules of a child. Kill twelve people, save one. A sister, a lover, yourself, but the point is to save one. To prove yourself to that person, to become the world to that person, to prove to them that they're the world to you, and he could have done it once.
If Yui hadn't been who she was, and stopped him from killing for those first long, lonely months.
If Shinji hadn't died in his arms, still so determined that everyone deserved a chance to live and be happy.
"Their wishes." He closes his eyes, directing everything he has at bending this awesome, awful power to do what he wants. To do what they would have wanted, because they're better people than he could ever be, and because despite everything his life taught him he loves them. "No more fighting. Everyone happy. Find a way to make it happen."
It does, eventually. A moment of calm, of awareness on a scale he's never imagined, and it's gone. Ripping itself from him, taking even the capacity to understand what's going to happen, but it doesn't matter.
He won.
They won.
He doesn't have the strength to stand anymore, so he lets himself slide down the wall. "I did it, Eri. For you. For Yui. For Kido. For me…"
Because he wants, more than anything else, for them to be happy.
He can't see the life support machines—can't see anything anymore, though he doesn't think his eyes are closed—but he can hear the changes. The quickening of her pulse, though it's nowhere near as fast as the one ringing in his ears. The uneven rapidness of her breathing as she struggles toward awareness.
He smiles, letting his head drop down because he doesn't have the strength to hold it up anymore.
The wonderful thing about loving good people and making their wishes come true is that
they'll help you get yours, too.
XXXXX
"Ren…"
He gives it to her. The power to change the world, the power to rewrite destiny, and he hands it over to her.
She wants to hug him. Wants to hold him, and thank him, and tell him it's all right, she'll do what he wanted.
But the one who gave her the power is already faded near to nothing, and the one she can make not yet born, so she does the only thing she can to thank him.
It's a waste, maybe, to use even the little power needed to wake the woman. After all, to do what he wants, to give as many people as possible a shot at happiness, this will never have happened.
But she loves Ren, and the woman's waking makes his passing easier. Proves to him that he was right, that loving is a strength, and Yui wishes she were still human enough to cry.
Not that she's really been human for a long, long time.
Is she really Yui, even now? A godling, contemplating rewriting the whole world; a mirror creature, a creation from a frightened child's dreams; how long has it been since she was just the human child Yui? Has she ever been just Yui?
Yes. Once upon a time, yes.
But not now. Now she is everything she was ever meant to be, and she'll use that power to destroy herself.
"No."
His voice breaks on the word as his arms tighten around her. Though he can't be here, shouldn't be here, she's grateful for the contact.
"Yui, please." He's crying, tears soaking through the fabric of her shirt. His shuddering breath shakes both of them. "There's another way. There's got to be another way."
"Do you see one, Shinji?" Turning in his arms, she puts a hand against his face. He looks the same now, though he could have taken any form.
"This isn't… this isn't what we wanted. Not what I wanted. Not what Ren wanted." Shinji continues to cry, his grip on her painfully tight. "He loves you, Yui. He wouldn't want to give you the power to have you… to have you…"
"I've been dead for a long time, Shinji." Her fingers stroke gently down his cheek. "If I have to be dead for you not to have to fight, for Ren not to have to fight… for Tezuka not to die—"
"Find another way!" He shakes her, hard, a flash of anger that fades away to a whimpering cry. "You're God, aren't you? You created this! The power he just gave us… I'm dead! I'm dead and I'm here and yet you can't find a way—"
"We're creators. Emissaries. Agents." He can't understand what she is; she can barely understand what she is, not while keeping this human consciousness. "We can change the course of events. We've done it before. We can change the world we drew. Not a world of Monsters. Not a world of fear. Not a world where everyone's the enemy, and you can only love one person. And do you know why?"
His hands are clutched around hers, his face a picture of misery.
"Because of you, Shinji." She squeezes her hands together around his, feels the fragility of his bones. "Because of you, and because of Ren, and because of Tezuka. But mostly because of you."
"We'll lose everything." The tears have stopped, but the haunted, hurt look remains. "Everything we've built. What's Ren going to be left with? He gave us this power because he loves us, and we'll leave him alone. You'll be dead; I won't remember him."
"I…" It hurts, because it's true. "He'll have Eri."
"Be back to the way he was when I met him? Hitting anything that moves? Afraid to care about anyone?"
"And what would you prefer I do? Change his childhood? Change what he went through? I could do that, you know." She breaks away from him, can feel the power gathering around herself. Black feathers, falling from the sky, and she throws the words down at his feet. "No longer an orphan. No longer a victim. No abuse, no neglect, never on the streets. Maybe he grows up next door to her. Never gets in a fight in his life. Or maybe I should get more creative. Would you prefer—"
His grabs her, pulls her tight against him. One hand rests on her neck, the other on her back. "No. I'm sorry, Yui. It's all right."
She sighs, drawing the power back down. Human. She will be human right now. "We could change things, Shinji. We could change a lot of things. But how much is right? How much can I adapt before it's not Ren anymore?"
"He'll always be Ren." The confidence in Shinji's voice is comforting. "But you're right. It's not for you to change that. And I can't find another way, but it's not fair. I don't want to lose you. I don't want to lose Ren. Or Kitaoka or Gorou. Or me."
"Idiot." Pulling back from him, she cups his face, meeting his gaze dead on. "You can't lose yourself. You're the reason we made it this far, this time around. The reason we'll be able to do this. You saved us, Shinji. You'll definitely still be in this world."
"I'm not the same now as I was when this started." He stares through her, past her, at the horrors of the last year. "I… grew. It was scary, and it hurt, and I never want to go through it again, but I don't want to lose it, either."
"Shinji…"
"But you'll be sacrificing… a lot more." He doesn't force the smile. That makes it all the more heartbreaking. "I'll miss you, Yui-chan. Even if I don't remember why, I promise I'll miss you."
This time she pulls him to her, holds him tight. "Do you want to remember, Shinji?"
"Eh?" His body tenses, equal parts fear and excitement. "Really?"
"It happens, when we restart things. When we change time. Not often, but it happens." It's comforting, holding Shinji, so she doesn't pull away. "With Tezuka, a lot. With Toujou, sometimes. I can try to make it so you all have your memories from this time around, though. If you wanted."
"All of us?" Shinji tilts his head back, studying the deep blue of the sky. "Even those who died? Even Asakura and Toujou?"
"Would you prefer it just being you and Ren?"
"I…" He hesitates, shivering again. "I don't think I should make this decision. I don't think it's right."
"There's no one else who can make it, Shinji. Just you and me."
"I think… memories are important." He's shaking again, the barest tremble. "I think I need to be able to remember. I think Ren does, too. I think… maybe we all should. Because what happened was important, even if it… even if it…"
Hurt. Damned. Tortured.
Healed. Saved. Helped.
"You won't remember clearly." Her fingers pick at the fabric of his clothing. "Just a sense, a feeling, but I can try to make sure the memories are there if you go looking for them."
"So we'll all have a choice, then." Smiling, Shinji nods, tightens his hold on her. "And I think we'll all choose the right thing."
"I know you will, Shinji." Pulling back, she smiles back at him. "Out of all of them, I'm certain you will."
"I have to go now, don't I?" He shivers, arms wrapping around himself. "So you can…"
"Yes." Taking his hand in hers, she squeezes it gently. "You have to go live your life. And I have to go save my brother."
"Yui…" There are tears in his eyes again, but he doesn't move to grab her. "I… I'm sorry. Sorry I can't save you. Sorry it has to be like this."
"Don't be."
The power that Ren gave to pull this soul back is fading already, flickering. Looking down at his body, Shinji sighs. "Yui-chan… you're amazing. Really, really amazing. And I'll miss you."
"I won't be too far gone." Letting go of his hand, she draws the last of the energy back into herself.
Shinji fades entirely, soul drawn back to wherever human—true human—spirits went when they died.
Reaching up to her face, she smiles at the feel of tears there. "I'll be with my brother, but for you two, I'll never be very far away."
XXXXX
He doesn't resist the changes they make to the past. He even seems to enjoy it, sketching with his younger self, her younger self, building a world where Monsters aren't needed. A world where they don't have to be protected from other people by inhuman creatures.
A world where people didn't die because they finally decided to have a conscience and do the right thing.
A world where a young serial-killer-in-the-making was caught and counseled before he murdered.
A world where heroes could be real.
A world where pacifism didn't bring death.
A world where the name Kanzaki was never used, and Ren was spared that suffering, at least.
A world like Shinji would have wanted, and it's wonderful to draw. Wonderful to stretch her imagination and her power, finding just the right places to tweak things so that they're better.
For most people, at least.
"I don't want to die, Yui."
She doesn't tell him it's too late for that, though it is. They've already set the world in motion, and there's no place for them in it.
"It's not fair." His hands are clenched into fists. "Not right."
"No." Taking his hand, she pulls him gently forward. "But it was the best we could do."
"We could change things still. We could save ourselves. What about Grandma? She never knew, and now—"
"We're not human anymore, brother." She doesn't look at him as she speaks. "Neither of us have been… for some time now."
"Yui…"
"We've made two worlds now." Smiling up at him, she tugs gently on his hand again. "Why don't we go see what else we can do?"
"Together?" He takes one hesitant forward, following her lead.
"Together." She hugs him. "Always together."
"Just you and me." He strokes her hair, ruffles it like he did when they were children. "Just us, all alone, and I'll protect you better this time. I promise."
"No." Taking both his hands, she continues to pull him forward. "Us, yes, and together, but we're not alone. There are already so many wonderful people who care about us, brother. And we have to die in this world so they can live, but we don't have to abandon them."
"It was a mistake." His hand tightens around hers. "Letting Kido Shinji and Akiyama Ren play at the same time."
"No, oniichan." Shaking her head, she smiles up at him. "It was the best thing you could have done. We didn't need to be trapped here anymore, caged by this room. Not when there are so many wonderful things in this universe. Things we can see, things we can make… It's going to be all right. More than that. It's going to be wonderful."
He nods, slowly, and smiles at her. "Yes."