Protecting This Stolen Day

The sky was deep purple, almost black. Nothing moved in it, not even the clouds that now cloaked the globe. Gingka stared up at it, heart pounding in his chest. How could this have happened?

He had been winning. He knew he had been winning. He was going to save the world. And then all of a sudden – he wasn't. And Rago had pulled out a full Armageddon on him, and next thing he knew he was staring at the sky, his destroyed blade lying in seven pieces beside him.

It was less than an hour to sunrise. With the rise of the sun, the Black Sun, the victory of what had once been Dark Nebula and was now Nemesis would be completed.

They had lost. Nemesis had won.

The stones underneath him bit into already grazed and bleeding skin. He didn't really care. There was nothing he could do any more, not without a blade. No-one was left to challenge Rago. Leone's performance tip was broken, Pegasus was shattered, Orion had no fusion wheel left, Dynamis' Jade Jupiter had cracked clear across the face-bolt, all the way down to the core. Not even all the Legend Bladers together had been able to stand up to the terrible evil might of Rago and Nemesis.

"It's over," he whispered, and the dust puffed up from his lips with the breath.

How could they possibly get out of this one?

The crackling of flame brought his head round a little, and he could just make out the ring of black fire that he had been catapulted out of at the end of the Armageddon move. It seemed that not even the destruction of the other blade would merit the extinguishing of those unearthly flames. In the non-light he could almost see Kyouya over on the other side of the ring, though what he could actually see was his shadow as the Lion fought to keep breathing as the flames licked at his exposed skin. Chris and Dynamis were collapsed in a heap with Aguma, Tithi and Yuki, and King's still-white hair could be seen near to a pile of rubble that had trapped his arm. Next to him was Kenta, blood running from his nose and mouth in evidence of the phenomenal fight he had put up against Nemesis and Rago, a struggle that had been too much for even his blader spirit, and had made his heart burst. Tsubasa was slumped against a rock, horribly still, with Yuu and Madoka held protectively against his chest to keep them safe from flying rubble with his own body as one final act of heroic sacrifice. Masamune was just out of reach of Gingka's hand, blood running down his face from a deep cut above his eye, slowly congealing in the dust as he fell ever deeper into an eternal coma.

Ryuga was just gone.

A movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he managed to turn his head back just in time to see the helicopter get caught in the rising updraught of Nemesis' spinning and get dragged down towards the sea, rotors screaming as the pilot fought for control. Gingka saw his dad push Benkei and Hikaru out of the door as the helicopter veered sharply and plummeted, crumpling against the surface of the sea like tinfoil.

Deep inside, he knew that they were gone, all of them. The sea hadn't settled at all since Nemesis had risen, and even if the death throes of the helicopter had missed them by a miracle, the currents would tear them apart in moments.

His body ached with the abuses it had suffered over the past few hours, and he was almost certain that his left ankle was broken, but his heart hurt more than everything else combined. Now he was on his own.

"So close," whispered a voice right by his ear; Pluto. "But in the end, so utterly useless."

Gingka tried to shake his head, to deny the words, but he just couldn't. "Not... useless," he managed at last. "I stopped you for a while."

"You delayed us for five minutes," Rago boomed, his dark shadow rising in the centre of the black flames, eyes glowing red. "Five minutes is nothing in eternity – and eternity is what we have now."

He was right. And that wasn't even the worst of it; Gingka had known that right from the beginning. Oh, he had hoped that it would have been enough, that his friends old and new could force through the steel defences of Nemesis with an alliance forged in shadows, but his will hadn't been enough to hold them all together, not when all of them were so different and so wary of each other.

He couldn't see it, but he knew that Rago's skin was splitting as Nemesis forced its way through, merging with the mortal descendant of its first bearer to gift itself with a physical form for the first time in millennia. White and black lights danced across his vision and he felt horribly sick. Near the eastern horizon, a soft, dark glow was beginning to get stronger.

"One Emperor is dethroned to see another take his place," Pluto murmured as the dark light grew. "The wings of the white Pegasus melt in the darkness and he falls like Icarus into the sea. Night follows day, and the day has dragged on too long."

The strange boy leaned over Gingka and pressed two long, pale fingers against each of Gingka's shoulders, holding him down.

"Stay," he hissed. "Stay and watch as the Night swallows the Day."

Gingka felt ice trickle through his veins at the unwanted touch, and every muscle in his body froze. He struggled, trying to turn his head, but it was already too late. He couldn't move at all, couldn't even reach for the comfort of Pegasus, or look towards Madoka, Yuu, Masamune – anyone – as the Black Sun broke over the horizon, bringing with it complete blackness...

.

Gingka's eyes flew open into complete blackness. For a single, horrible second he remained utterly paralysed; then all the muscles relaxed and he sat up with a jolt, gasping in deep, shuddering breaths. His heart was hammering so fast that he thought it would burst. After a couple of seconds, he leaned over and flicked the light-switch on, bathing the room in yellow light. Pegasus glinted softly at him from the bedside table and he picked up the familiar blue blade, feeling the ridges along its edges and knowing them better than his own face.

But tonight Pegasus was no comfort.

It was the third time this month that he'd had that dream, the third time that he'd awoken sweating, shaking, crying. Every time, he had turned the light on with trembling hands, just to check that the world was still working whilst his mind stumbled over the images, smells, sounds, tastes of the dream.

Of his friends, gone forever.

Of his world, gone forever.

Of his utter uselessness.

Muscles, stiffened from long sleep, protested bitterly as their owner swung himself off his bed and moved over to the door. Kenta, Kyouya, Masamune – he had to check, had to make sure they were alright.

The corridor was dark and cool, the only light coming from under Gingka's door. Kenta first; he had to be alright, please...

Gingka froze with his hand on the door handle of Kenta and Masamune's room. What was he doing? It was nearly three in the morning – both the occupants of the room would be deeply asleep and would hardly welcome him waking them up just because he'd dreamed that they'd died again.

That stupid dream. It made him do this, made him so fearful, so insecure.

He hated himself for doing it, for being so weak. After all, he was the strongest blader in the world now, and his connection with Pegasus had never been closer. In the dish, they were perfectly in sync, perfectly controlled.

Outside the dish was something altogether different.

Like tonight, which had left him holding the cold handle of a bedroom door, ready to wrench it open and wake the oblivious occupants just to reassure himself that they weren't lying dead on an island a thousand miles away. Like the hundreds of times over the past month or so that he had needed to check that everyone really was in the big WBBA house they were all sharing for now, had made certain that no-one was missing. Like the time that he had heard Masamune mutter to Madoka "D'you think Gingka's okay? I mean, look at him..." and Madoka had realised he was within earshot and had quickly shushed Masamune, but not quickly enough.

Gingka lowered his hand. He'd spoken with the others about the dreams – tentatively at first, but gradually with more and more confidence as the pieces had begun to slot together. But though they all said that yes, they had bad dreams about it sometimes, they could normally get back to sleep afterwards when they'd just double-checked that the world was still as it was.

They didn't whirl around when someone stepped too close behind them in case it was a red-eyed shadow rising from a pit.

They didn't reflexively grip their blades whenever they stepped into a public building because even if it looked nothing like a Mayan temple, the unfamiliar transition from light to dark could easily set him off into involuntary shivering.

And they didn't have to pull the curtains tight across the window every evening when the sun was still shining so that they couldn't see the moment when the sun fell below the curve of the earth into darkness.

One memory led to another, always, and Gingka really wasn't sure how much more he could take. Tsubasa, who seemed to know everything, said that it was PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and told him that soldiers often got it when they came back from the wars.

Well, Gingka had certainly been in the wars. But he didn't care if he had a disorder or a condition or anything else. He just... just wanted it to stop. For it to be over at last.

"It'll stop one day," his father had said when Gingka had told him about the dreams. "I promise you, one day you'll be free."

Except that "one day" didn't seem to be appearing very fast, and in the meantime Gingka was beginning to struggle.

"Hey, Gingka."

The folds of a dressing-gown draped themselves around his shoulders, and he looked up to see Tsubasa himself standing beside him, still fully dressed. The Eagle offered him a small smile. "Bad dreams again, huh?"

"Yeah," Gingka sighed, sliding his arms through the sleeves of the dressing-gown and hunching his shoulders into its warmth. "You?"

Tsubasa shrugged fluidly. "Couldn't sleep. Don't go worrying about me now, though, I'm fine." His golden eyes sparkled with life in the light from Gingka's room.

Ever the light sleeper, and having some sense of what Gingka was going through due to his own horrific experiences with the dark power, Tsubasa was often the one who found Gingka on one of the bad nights. It had become almost a habit with them. Tsubasa was always ready to just wait in silence at Gingka's side and wait for him to confirm that yes, it had been exactly the same dream. Then he'd go and make some hot chocolate whilst Gingka pulled himself together, and they'd sit in the living room for an hour or two, talking softly so that their sleeping team-mates couldn't hear them. Their conversations were never complicated, and rarely even mentioned the events at the temple or the aftermath, but Gingka treasured them all the more for that. And Tsubasa was the only one who never asked him that stupid question "Are you okay?" when it was all too obvious that he really wasn't.

"Coming?" Tsubasa asked, already at the head of the stairs, and Gingka hurried to catch up, not wanting to be left alone in the darkness.

Tsubasa led the way to the kitchen and busied himself getting the drinks together whilst Gingka perched on the worktop and stared out of the darkened window with dead, unseeing eyes.

It really had been that close. He'd needed every single blader in the world, as well as one who was no longer in it, and even then it had been touch and go. So many had been relying on him in that moment, and he could have failed so easily if it hadn't been for the outstanding efforts of all his friends. Rago, Pluto and Nemesis had come so close to their goal, and before them Dr Ziggurat and even Doji had been far too close to theirs. And to think that it had all been leading up to that one point... The WBBA had merely been scrambling around trying to patch up the holes those plans had caused, not realising that the holes were a pattern that led to a final, conclusive victory. And who was to say that there wasn't a yet-more elaborate and dangerous plan waiting in the wings?

Gingka drew his knees up to his chest and buried his face in them, drawing in carefully measured breaths against the rising panic that was coiling through his chest. It was over, he knew it was over. They'd won, hadn't they?

But every few nights the dreams came back and reminded him of what could have been, carried him back to that day with terrifying ease, that day which had been the turning point of everything. The day he had stolen victory from the jaws of defeat, but at such a terrible cost.

Could he even bear to think about going through all that yet again?

"Gingka?" Tsubasa was back, two steaming mugs in one hand, the other laid softly on Gingka's shoulder. "Come on, the sofa's much more comfy."

Gingka drew in another breath and nodded, taking his mug from Tsubasa and following him into the living room. Unusually, Tsubasa took the rocking chair, leaving Gingka alone on the sofa.

For a long time, the two of them sat in silence, sipping their drinks and listening to the occasional snores coming from the bedrooms above their heads. When Gingka's mug was half-empty, Tsubasa suddenly put his down and said "Still the same dream, then?"

Gingka shook his head. "This time, you were dead too. You were trying to protect Yuu and Madoka and a rock hit you, I think."

Tsubasa nodded, apparently unperturbed by this fact. "Dreams are strange things. I had one the other night where Kenta turned into a starfish and I was trying to hunt him down with Eagle because he'd forgotten to buy the rice."

The tactic was so obvious that Gingka wondered why Tsubasa, normally the master of subtlety, had attempted it. Of course, dreams were just nonsense generated by the subconscious, there was nothing to worry about.

But that couldn't erase the vivid image of his dying friends from Gingka's mind, or the guilt when he thought of what he had been about to do less than ten minutes beforehand, waking his friends for his own selfish need to make sure they were alright.

"Don't you get tired of it?" Gingka exploded. "It's over now, why can't I just forget it?"

"Do you want to?"

It was such an unexpected question that Gingka stopped and thought for a moment. "I don't understand..."

Tsubasa leaned forwards in his chair, setting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together in front of him. "I still dream about it, you know. Even though it was so long ago."

"What?"

"The times I battled L-Drago, especially the last time. And I always wake up and wonder – what would have happened if I had won? If I'd just gone straight for the kill instead of trying to humiliate him first. And you know what? I think it would have been worse."

"What do you mean?" Gingka's fear- and sleep-muddled mind wasn't following Tsubasa's argument.

"If I'd won, Ryuga wouldn't have progressed to the next round of Battle Bladers. So he wouldn't have been controlled by the power as he was against you and Kyouya, and so he wouldn't have learned how to overcome it. He would never have been strong enough to help out in Hades City, let alone try to take on Nemesis. So... sometimes I'm glad that I have bad dreams about losing to him. It means that I'm still alive to have them."

Gingka took another mouthful of chocolate and swallowed almost painfully. "Is that supposed to be some sort of obscure parable?"

Tsubasa actually laughed. "No," he smiled. "I was just thinking out loud." Then, returning to seriousness, he said "But it's true. We have many scars that ache still, but we can only feel them because we're alive, and that means we've won."

"The battle or the war?"

Tsubasa was silent, as Gingka had known he would be. Every time that they had faced some new enemy, there had been something bigger just around the corner. They had merely been winning back days, one at a time, stealing them from the jaws of a waiting darkness.

Why shouldn't there be another one of those this time? A greater darkness that crouched behind the stars, just waiting for its moment to pounce?

"Tsubasa," he said quietly. "When will it stop?"

And Tsubasa only shook his head. "I don't know, Gingka."

Chocolate finished, Gingka was now back in his cool, dark room, trying to settle down and get some sleep for the final hours of the night. After a couple of weeks of being woken up by Gingka's nightmares, Masamune had engineered a room-swap so that Gingka was now on his own, which at least meant that no-one else was supposed to be disturbed by the light being turned on at unearthly hours of the morning.

But Tsubasa was there now, wrapped in the quilt from his bed and sitting perfectly balanced on the windowsill, and Gingka was incredibly grateful. If it had been anyone else, Gingka would have been embarrassed to admit that he really didn't want to sleep alone in his room, and twice as embarrassed if he accidentally woke them with ghosts of past battles that he couldn't leave behind.

But if anyone knew what it was like to stare into the heart of darkness and see yourself looking straight back, it was Tsubasa. And if Gingka knew anything, it was that the road he was walking now, and the load he was bearing, meant that many of his other friends who had been able to move on from their fears were now far ahead of him, almost out of sight.

Yet Tsubasa stayed, and that was what was important. The Eagle's persistence and deep friendship meant the world to Gingka.

"Why?" he asked, and somehow the Eagle understood, his voice floating back out of the darkness.

"Because you're my friend. And because I know that we've still got today, and I'm going to protect that with everything I have so that we'll still have it tomorrow. Now, go to sleep. The world will still be here when you wake up."

"As will you."

He thought he heard a soft chuckle from the windowsill, but it might have been Benkei snoring in the next room. "As will I."

Updated Dynamis' name to the "correct" version, even though personally I prefer 'Dunamis', which is the Greek word for 'power'

This fic is linked to Nightmare Under A Silver Moon, a story with similar themes but starring Kenta.