Disclaimer: I do not own Tumbling or Kamen Rider Kiva, nor am I profiting from it any way. This fiction was written solely for my own pleasure.

Warning: This fiction contains shonen-ai. This means romance between guys. If this makes you uncomfortable in any way, then don't read this. I am in no way responsible for those who do not heed this warning.

Summary: Tumbling Post-series. AU w/ crossover with Kamen Rider Kiva. Premise: "What if Takenaka Yuta was Kiva?"

Azuma Wataru wondered why it took him so long to realize that while he considered Takenaka Yuta like a brother, he hardly ever knew anything about the kind captain's life outside of tumbling. But he's about to discover a whole other side of Yuta's life, a side fraught with Fangire politics, obsessive violin playing, and unimaginable danger.

Pairings: Wataru x Yuta, eventual Mizusawa x Kiyama, onesided Yuta x Tsurumi, Hino x Mari, Nago x Megumi

Fangire Spring

Chapter 2- Yuta's Bloody Rose, Hino's Date with Mari-Chan, and Jiro's Night Out

By fieryrondo

"No way."

Those two words that tugged themselves from Wataru's lips didn't even begin to cover the shock Mizusawa felt when he saw Yuta walk on stage, in quick but measured steps, his slender long fingers wrapped around the violin's neck and bow. His hair was styled so that the front bangs were fluffed out and parted in two. There was the familiar look of intensity on Yuta's face, one that Mizusawa noticed Yuta adopted when he was concentrating on developing a new choreography or adding steps to their routine, but the feeling of the intensity was different, giving Yuta a colder look. As Yuta looked out to the audience, his eyes were like chips of glinting obsidian. He gave a slight nod to the accompanist and brought the violin to rest under his chin.

Yuta raised his bow and began to play.

If Mizusawa had to describe Yuta's performance in one word, the word would have to be "enchanting." There was no other way to describe the heavenliness of the notes Yuta created as he drew the bow along the strings. It was magic at its purest, a dazzling dance of sound and rhythm. Mizusawa could almost feel something deep within him call out to Yuta's playing.

It was as if he could hear his own music beating in harmony to Yuta's.

Mizusawa sneaked a sidelong glance at the others. Kaneko kept taking off of his glasses and wiping them furiously with a cleaning cloth, as if polishing the lenses would make him enjoy Yuta's playing even better. Tsuchiya's face was frozen in pure delight, his small hands twitching eagerly to burst into whole-hearted applause at his senpai's performance. Ryosuke's mouth had fallen wide open and he could only mutely sit there, stunned into silence. Kiyama was leaning back in his seat, his usual stoic face betraying hints of admiration and approval so subtle that Mizusawa would have missed them if he hadn't been watching Kiyama with a practiced eye. (Despite the fact that Kiyama did not return his feelings, Mizusawa's affections for him were still going strong. He'd accepted that Kiyama was only going to be a good friend at most and that was the best that Mizusawa could hope for.)

Out of curiosity, Mizusawa tipped his head just a little more forward to see Wataru.

Wataru was leaning forward so much that his nose was within a centimeter of colliding into the head of the person sitting directly in front of him. He had not taken eyes off of Yuta ever since Yuta walked onto the stage. His gaze was transfixed, locking on to the fluid flurry of bowstrokes, the deep rippling of the chords, Yuta's fierce concentration on the violin. Wataru was sitting on the very edge of his seat, taking in every one of the captain's movements. Mizusawa recognized the look in Wataru's eyes.

It was a look that Mizusawa wished Kiyama had given him. But Mizusawa was graceful enough not to press the matter further.

"As long as I get to be with Kiyama-kun as a friend, that will be enough for me." So Mizusawa locked up his own heart away, hiding his true feelings. It hurt him to do so but he had no choice.

Mizusawa wondered how long it would take for Wataru to realize the true extent of his feelings for their captain. Yuta had never really shown interest in girls but he never seemed interested in guys either. The guy was probably the closest to asexual as one could get as a teenager, though Mizusawa was still convinced that Yuta still had a sex drive.

Ryosuke had yanked Wataru back into his seat. The red-head yelped as he was forced back down.

"Oy! What ya do that for?"

The blond-haired Ryosuke clapped him on the shoulder.

"Eh, Wataru? You look like you've never seen a violin before."

Wataru spluttered, too prideful to admit that he'd actually never seen an actual violin. "Well—of course I have!" His eyes flicked back to Yuta. The violinist—it felt weird to call Yuta that, since Wataru had assumed he had dedicated his entire being to tumbling—had slipped into a softer series of notes, slow and sweet and crooning. The music felt a little similar to the music they used for their first few tournaments. But the music felt more real. If Wataru had to compare it, the tumbling music was like a picture of omurice and Yuta's violin was the actual sensation of warm egg and rice and chicken in his mouth.

"For some reason, that song makes me feel sad."

Ryosuke started at the comment that Wataru let slip from his lips. Out of all of the things he was expecting Wataru to say (or rather complain about), that had not been one of them. He glanced uneasily at the passion Wataru's normally open eyes had taken on. The customary fire in them had softened and as his face muscles relaxed, Wataru's face became softer, almost rounder. He looked almost…kind. Not that Wataru wasn't a kind person. Ryosuke had no doubt that Wataru had the biggest heart out of anyone he knew and as far as Ryosuke was concerned, out of the whole world too. Wataru would go through hell and fire for his nakama. But he rarely let his guard down, never exposed his gentler side. Even with his mother, Wataru still half-kept his mask of bluster and coarse language.

He'd never let down his mask completely to even Ryosuke, his best friend. Despite his efforts, Ryosuke felt a little trickle of an emotion that he recognized as jealousy. It was a very unpleasant feeling and Ryosuke tugged at his long wavy locks, quickly quashing the bitterness as he closed his eyes and allowed the serenity of Yuta's violin to take him away.

To think that you could play like this, Yuta, who would have thought you were one of those guys who can do everything? I almost want to hate you, but you're so kind that I can't even do that. No wonder Wataru is so drawn to you.

"Sugoi, Yuta-senpai!" Tsuchiya exclaimed, clasping his hands together and wringing them in excitement.

"It was a very inspiring performance," Mizusawa said, sidling up to Yuta to help him carry the bouquets. It seemed that the Karasumori tumbling captain was quite popular among the women in the audience.

"Thanks," Yuta said gratefully as he wiped sweat from his brow. He tugged at the stiff collar of his dress shirt. "I'd forgotten how hot it was under those lights."

"Was it your first performance this summer?" Kaneko asked, keenly peering from behind his glasses.

Yuta nodded. "Ah, before, it was just rehearsal but we didn't have all of those lights on." He gestured at the unfolded chairs scattered throughout the dressing room. "You can stay here for a while, if you like. I usually wait until the crowd thins out before leaving."

"Afraid of the paparazzi?" Ryosuke teased, propping his arms on the back of a chair.

"I don't really have that problem," Yuta said, cheerfully undoing his cummerbund. "It's mostly the older women who send me flowers."

"You mean those grannies?" Wataru plopped down into a chair, propping his feet up on a little table. Yuta chuckled.

"Don't be so mean, Wataru, some of them are actually not that old."

Wataru scoffed. He'd seen the last woman. A middle-aged woman with wide hips and a mouth that ran a mile a minute. She even had the audacity to hug Yuta. Really, a woman her age, it was scandalous. Not to mention really creepy. Wataru cleared his throat and turned his attention to the simple elegance of the room.

"Is this your room? Sweet place."

"It's not really mine," Yuta said, settling himself into the chair by the large mirror. He loosened the bowtie around his neck. "I share it with two other musicians, but they're both out of town until the end of the week."

"Ne, can I see senpai's violin?" Tsuchiya asked.

"I wouldn't mind looking at it too, Yuta," Kiyama said. His eyes flicked to the stringed instrument. "That's no ordinary violin."

"You have a good eye, Kiyama," Yuta praised, picking up the violin. Wataru leaned forward. Up close, the violin looked even more impressive. The wood was painted a deep red-brown color, like a rich mixture of red wood chips and loamy dark chocolate. The scroll of the violin swept to curve to a carved head of a beautiful lady. "Bloody Rose is one-of-a-kind."

"Bloody Rose?" Wataru asked, sounding out the unfamiliar words.

Yuta nodded. "It's the name of this violin."

"That's kind of cool," Ryosuke whistled, admiring the shiny varnish. "Wow, your parents must be loaded if you have this."

Almost immediately, a shadow crossed Yuta's face. Kiyama visibly tensed and Mizusawa caught himself from snapping, "Don't talk about his parents!" Tsuchiya and Kaneko looked worriedly at Yuta, whose eyes seemed to pierce through Ryosuke. Ryosuke gulped.

"Ahh, gomen, Yuta, I didn't mean—"

"It's fine, Ryosuke-kun." Everyone shivered at the added honorific that placed a little more distance between the two. Yuta took a deep breath before letting it out slowly. "I was going to tell you guys soon anyway. I guess this is a good time as any."

"Both of my parents are actually dead."

Mizusawa got up, face twisted with shock.

"Yuta! What do you mean—"

Yuta held up a hand to stop Mizusawa.

"It was easier to tell people that Takenaka Hiroto-san and Minami-san were my actual parents than to say that I was an orphan because my parents died in a fire." Yuta sighed. "In many ways, they are like my actual parents, even if they're not around much. They're busy people after all and now that I'm older, they don't need to take time out of their schedules to care for me. I don't remember what my real parents looked like."

"When…did the fire happen?" Kiyama asked.

Yuta frowned but looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully.

"I was pretty young, maybe in second grade."

"And you don't remember anything?" Kaneko asked. "Usually, people can remember—"

"I can't," Yuta interrupted, his voice tightening. "When I try, I remember the flames and then—" He pointed at his head. "—it hurts," he finished with clenched teeth.

"Then we won't talk about it," Wataru said. "We won't make you go through anything painful."

"That's right, Yuta," Mizusawa said. "If it hurts to remember, then don't."

Yuta's face slowly broke into a shy smile.

"Arigato, minna," he said, turning to look at everyone in the room.

"So how'd you get the violin, Yuta-senpai?" Tsuchiya tentatively asked. "I mean, you don't have to answer…"

"No, it's okay, Satoshi-kun," Yuta said, his fingers stroking the strings. "When they rescued me from the fire, apparently, I was holding on to the case that held this violin. So I think it may have been my father's."

"Maybe your father was a famous violinist?" Ryosuke asked. "You could look him up. See if there are any violinists with violins named 'Bloody Rose.'"

"I've tried," Yuta said, carefully placing the violin gently back into the case. "But I think while this was his violin, it wasn't the one he usually played. When I found it, the violin didn't look like it had been played very much. Oomura-sensei said that sometimes violinists have their own private violins, the ones that they only play for special occasions or that special someone."

"Doesn't seem that you've followed that special someone rule," Kaneko commented.

Yuta shrugged. "It's a wonderful violin but I'm not particularly attached to it. It's just my job—"

"Exactly the kind of attitude that keeps your music from transcending to a whole new level, Yuta-kun."

"Oomura-sensei!"

Wataru nearly jumped out of his seat at the appearance of a gruff, stocky middle-aged man clad in a mustard yellow suit. A pair of earbuds hung around his short, thick neck. He had not even heard the man walk in and Wataru prided himself on his keen senses, honed through years of street brawling.

"Yuta-kun, who are all of these people?"

"They're my friends. We're all on the same tumbling team—"

Oomura snorted.

"So these are the friends that are responsible for taking away so much time from your violin—"

Yuta's face hardened.

"Oomura-sensei, I thought we went over this. I will practice regularly on the Bloody Rose, I will play in summer concerts, but tumbling always comes first for me. And no, that is not negotiable."

Oomura looked as if he wanted to argue but he cast his gaze downwards.

"You are talented, Yuta-kun…"

"Maybe, Oomura-sensei, but I love tumbling more," Yuta said. "I'm sorry that I can't give more of my heart to the violin."

Oomura sighed, a sound that came deep from his lungs and reeked with regret.

"I suppose I should be grateful that you're still playing the violin at all at this point."

Yuta grinned. "Thank you, Oomura-sensei!" He leaped from his chair. "Would you like to meet my friends?"

"Everyone, this is Oomura-sensei. He's my violin coach but what's neat is that he also makes violins for a living. His most famous work was a violin called Black Star…"

"Did you enjoy the movie, Mari-chan?"

Satonaka Mari nodded vigorously, her pretty curled locks swishing. "Yes, it was wonderful. I thought it was going to be scary, with all of the vampires, but it was actually quite romantic."

Hino Tetsuya allowed himself a small smile. He picked the movie that he thought would most appeal to teenage girls. For some reason, Twilight was an immensely popular movie. Hino didn't quite understand why but he supposed it had something to do with girls liking the idea of having a forbidden relationship with someone who looked at them as food.

"Ah, I see." It seemed that Hino had chosen well. Hino hadn't particularly enjoyed the movie—he was really more of Sion Sono fan and the movie's plotline was too saccharine for his taste—but as long as Mari had enjoyed herself, he considered it a success. "I'm glad to hear it."

"Have you decided on your order?"

Hino inclined his head towards the smiling waitress.

"Just a moment. Mari-chan, anything you'd like? I'll pay." He froze as their fingertips touched, reaching for the menu. Their eyes met. It was then that Hino really noticed how wide and expressive Mari's eyes were. Despite himself, he leaned in closer.

"Ehhhh, that's a good mood! A good mood!"

"Impure! A young male and female gazing lustily at each other, so frivolously, it's definitely impure!"

Hino sighed as the mood vanished. One booth down from where they were seated, sat an odd couple. The first one who had spoken was an energetic woman with a hyper-bright grin, delicate cheeks and bouncing princess curls. She looked like an idol, chicly dressed, like one of those models that Hino vaguely recalled seeing in one of Nippori's magazines (not that he was ever inclined to look at such trashy things). The way she was crouching to watch them from behind the booth stall was borderline stalker creepy. Her companion, the second one who had interrupted, was an intimidating man with piercing dark eyes. He was clad in a white, short sleeve button up shirt under a black dress vest, a thin, black neck tie loosely strung around his loose collar. The ferocity of his stare was rather unnerving and Hino felt as if he had violated some key rule.

"Excuse me?" To Hino's surprise, it was their attending waitress who spoke. Her cheerful face tightened up with barely concealed fury.

The woman with the princess curls smacked the somberly dressed man on the arm.

"See what you did! You totally ruined the mood!"

"So quick to place blame on others, when it was you who instigated the situation? Be more honest with yourself. You are only trying to shirk responsibility."

The princess-curls woman sucked in a breath.

"Oh ho, I see what you're doing. You're just trying to avoid the subject so that you can re-inflate that ego of yours—"

The man instantly reacted at the words and emerged from his seat, eyes ablaze.

"You are mistaken. I only act for the sake of justice, and not for myself. Though as an agent of justice, I am exempt from the trivial social conventions of propriety—"

The woman thrust her finger angrily at the man's tie.

"There you go again, speaking to others in that condescending—"

The waitress approached them, her lips frozen in a tight smile. "I'm going to ask you two to leave. You're disturbing the other customers. Don't bother paying."

The woman protested, chatting gamely as the waitress pulled them towards the exit.

"Maa, don't be like that," she said, all smiles (Hino could have sworn the air around her lit up in model sparkles). "We just wanted to cheer for those adorable kids. Aah, to be in love~"

"Impure! Indecent conduct!" the man hissed, pulling the woman with him. "I don't understand why we had to waste a perfectly good evening engaging in such pointless activities when we could have been scouting instead—"

"Nago—" the woman interrupted, resisting the man's hold. She turned apologetically back to the waitress. "Gomen ne, he's been in an unusually bad mood today. So we'll just be going now! Ja ne!"

The door jangled noisily behind them. Hino watched the waitress sullenly staring outside.

"Ano…I think we're ready to order."

The waitress perked up and quickly returned to their table.

"One strawberry parfait please."

Hino let out a breath that he didn't know he had been holding.

It seemed that the unexpected storm had passed.

Even at night it was still noisy.

Jiro rarely frequented outside of Castle Doran, preferring the tomb-like somber of Doran's empty halls over the cacophony and stench of the city. How many years had passed…seventeen? Eighteen? With little world contact, time seemed to still for the Wolfen. His kind, like the other Demon Races, aged very slowly. The human realm, it seemed to Jiro, always seemed to be in the helpless throes of frantic change, with humans living out their pointless lives, meeting pointless people, doing the same pointless things over and over again. It was a tedious world.

Still, there was only so many rounds of Hell's Maid an Arms Monster could take, so many chess games that could be played before the restless feeling of boredom sank into their bones, reminding them of the eternity they had.

In the end, it came down to a round of jan-ken-pon. Jiro won so he was allowed a night out, much to Ramon and Riki's chagrin, who were convinced that he somehow cheated.

A lot has changed in eighteen years, Jiro thought as he strode through the brightly lit streets, wincing at the blaring honk of a passing truck. Well, the filthiness of the air is still the same.

He nodded appreciatively at the shortened skirts of passing women. Otoya would certainly have a field day with this. Jiro wondered how Yuri would look in a mini-skirt and tried not to blush.

The familiar sensation of melancholy settled within and the Wolfen growled in irritation. Though the dreams came less and less now, he occasionally dreamed of a world where Yuri had chosen his proposal, had chosen him over Otoya. Jiro dreamed of a family of pups to love and play with, of many years in the future—Yuri would regrettably be old but he would care for her, the mother of his revived race, to the end of her days—when the Wolfen race would return once more to seek revenge on the Fangires that had so mercilessly slaughtered their kind. It was a sweet dream that left a bitter aftertaste with Jiro's awakening to reality.

It was funny, really, how attached Jiro had allowed himself to become. But while he saw the majority of humans as nothing more than insects, he grudgingly admitted that there were a few humans that were worthy of his company. Unfortunately, those privileged members were now dead. Otoya left him years ago, succumbing to the poison of the Dark Kiva power. Yuri, too, he heard, had died as well, the legacy of her beauty lingering in her daughter, Megumi.

What of Otoya's legacy? The child of Kurenai Otoya and former Fangire Queen, Maya, had vanished mysteriously ten years ago. The stupid flying Kivat-bat had lost the boy in a sudden fire, an "accident" that Jiro suspected was the work of some cowardly Fangire with a grudge against the former Queen. By the time the Arms Monsters had arrived at the scene, the Kurenai mansion was already burnt to the ground and human rescue workers were swarming, wading through the debris. The smoke and ash had dispersed the child's scent to the four winds and after several days of relentless tracking (well, Jiro tracked, Ramon asked questions and Riki just threatened terrified social workers with a fist), the Arms Monsters were forced to retreat back to Castle Doran before it went on a rampage.

Jiro felt he had failed Otoya the day he let Kurenai Wataru die. Though the Wolfen side of him clamored at the absurdity of feeling remorse over breaking a promise to a human who was already dead, the guilt continued to gnaw at him, leaving him hollow and full of pain. It was only out of pure respect for Otoya that the Wolfen no longer feasted on humans, sustained by the life-force provided by Castle Doran and the occasional Fangire-slaying on full moon nights.

He'd been walking around for some time, only half-aware of his surroundings. By the time, he came to his senses, to his utter embarrassment, the Wolfen realized he was quite lost, and had wandered into an unfamiliar part of the neighborhood. He slinked off to either go find a map (they still had those, didn't they?) or accost a hapless human for directions. While turning a corner, in a rare display of klutziness, Jiro crashed into a group of high school boys.

"Ahh, gomen-nasai!"

Jiro growled. The crash hadn't hurt the Wolfen in the slightest but he had dropped his sunglasses in the scuffle. Dusting his black sleeves, the Wolfen surveyed the group of boys. They were definitely a motley gang. Three of them had conspicuously spiked hair and carried themselves with that relaxed but poised confidence (Definitely street fighters, Jiro decided). The other two were dressed much more conservatively. What drew Jiro's attention was the one who had bumped into him. He stood out from the group, decked out in concert evening wear, the kind of clothes Otoya sometimes wore for formal concerts. Fate must have been laughing from above since the boy was even carrying what appeared to be a violin case.

Jiro spat from the corner of his mouth.

"Watch you're going next time, brats."

To Jiro's amusement, one of the delinquents, the red-haired one, lunged for him.

"What'd you say, you bastard?"

Jiro chuckled at the redhead's antics.

"Good thing I like you, brat," he said, neatly side-stepping the boy. To his mild surprise, the boy anticipated his dodge and moved towards him, swinging his fist. Jiro caught it in mid-strike and easily used the boy's momentum against him to send him flying back into the arms of his friends.

"He's fast…" the blonde-haired one gasped out. The other spiky-haired one, the stoic looking one, aggressively moved towards Jiro, but paused when the violin boy blocked him with an arm.

To Jiro's shock (he seemed to be experiencing that emotion at an alarmingly high rate that night), the violin boy took a step towards him.

"What are you doing, Yuta? He's dangerous," one of his companions, a bespectacled one, called out.

"Be careful," the stoic one warned. "He blocked Wataru's hit like it was nothing."

Disregarding their warnings, the violin boy called Yuta picked up a pair of sunglasses—which Jiro recognized as the ones that had fallen out of his pocket—and held them out.

"They're yours, aren't they?" Yuta asked. "Sorry for bumping into you. It was my fault for not looking properly."

Touched by this small act of kindness, Jiro stepped towards the boy called Yuta and accepted the sunglasses.

"Domo," Jiro said. "You live around here?"

Yuta nodded. "Sort of. Do you need directions? Where are you headed?"

As Jiro handed a scrap of paper that had an address scrawled on it (of course, he couldn't give the real address of Castle Doran—somewhere in the middle of the forest wasn't a particularly helpful location—so he gave the address of a house in the neighborhood he was familiar with), he found himself drawn to the violin boy. Up close, the boy bore a striking resemblance to Otoya. Maybe Jiro was seeing a piece of Otoya in every male violinist (again, he cursed the flirtatious human for affecting him like this), but the boy really did remind him of a younger Otoya. If Otoya had cut his ridiculously long hair and cleaned up a bit and looked just a little bit more feminine…

"Here you go, sir." Yuta handed him a folded piece of paper with a list of directions. "This will take you to the train station. You can get to where you want to go if you ride it." The boy picked up his violin case and Jiro caught the sweet scent of wood and roses. "I have to get going now but I hope you find your way back."

Yuta returned to his friends and the high school boys disappeared into the crowd, leaving Jiro standing blankly on the sidewalk, clutching the directions tightly in his fist.

"Wood and roses…where have I smelled that before?" Jiro's eyes widened.

"Masaka, Bloody Rose?"

Next Time: Chapter 3- A Date Gone Awry, the Arrival of IXA, and an Invitation to Castle Doran