Part Three
Yuuta'd expected to have time to help Echizen look through the stacks of paper his friends downstairs had put together--after all, he'd had nothing but time for the past few weeks--but after the press conference, every lesser monster and petty supervillain crawled out from beneath their rocks to cause havoc. "What the hell is all this?" he complained to Taka-san after the fifth straight mess that they'd had to clean up--no one had ever told him that being a superhero was hard work, on top of everything else.
"It's you," Taka-san said, with a shrug. "You're new. Everyone's hoping to get you."
"Get me?" Yuuta asked.
"Kill you," Kaidoh-san grunted. "They're testing us. If they manage to kill you, they get prestige with their scummy little cronies and it's obvious that Seishun isn't as powerful without Tensai."
"You're joking, right?" Yuuta asked them, but they just shrugged.
"They were joking, right?" he asked Echizen later, while he sifted through the paperwork that itemized Aniki's movements in the days just before he disappeared.
"No," Echizen said, absently. "Same thing happened when I came in. Didn't really stop till I kicked whatsisname's ass. That guy from Rikkai. Big quiet one."
Yuuta stared at him, appalled. "You mean I have to fight and beat someone like the Emperor before anyone takes me seriously?"
"Less talking, more working, please," Echizen said.
"When we find Aniki I am retiring and never looking back," Yuuta muttered. "Mark my words."
Echizen laughed like he didn't believe him.
Tezuka-taichou didn't seem quite as blasé about the sudden uptick of activity, and when Yuuta saw him--which was less often these days, now that one small team or another was out patrolling at all times--looked tense around the eyes. "What's he so worried about?" he asked Oishi-san when they both happened to be in the canteen.
Oishi-san shrugged, noncommittal. "Could be anything." Yuuta doubted that, very much, so he waited, until Oishi-san stopped fiddling with his chopsticks and added, "He's worried there's someone out there behind all of the little fish. A big fish. Or a shark."
"Oh, great," Yuuta said. "That's just what I want to hear."
"It's probably nothing," Oishi-san hastened to assure him. "You know how Tezuka gets."
He relayed it to Echizen anyway, and watched Echizen frown. "That's... that's interesting," he said. "I don't know why I didn't think of that myself." He snorted. "I just thought he was worried about that stick up his ass."
"That's probably because you go out of your way to avoid him," Yuuta said, adding "Big shark?" to his list of Possible Reasons Aniki Is Missing. He looked up just in time to see the thunderous expression on Echizen's face. "You do. Are the two of you only a thing when Aniki's around?"
"That's not any of your business," Echizen snapped.
"Take it that's a yes," Yuuta murmured. "We'd better find Aniki fast, just so you two can stop snapping at each other every time you meet."
"Have I ever told you that you talk too damn much?" Echizen growled, and buried himself in his notes.
"Yeah, whatever." Yuuta bent back over his work, and added, after a moment, "I'm just glad I don't have to be the one to run this place. I'd kill you all at the first staff meeting." Although that was probably being too generous.
"Not if we killed you first." Echizen flipped one folder closed and added to a stack. "He's never had much problem doing his job." The line of his mouth was set.
"Yeah, and that's why I'd suck at it. Can you imagine having to be that damn responsible all the time?" Yuuta snorted. "I'd lose my fucking mind."
"Who ever said you had a mind to lose in the first place?" Echizen retorted. "And seriously, you're wasting time."
"Right, right," Yuuta said, and figured that was as much pushing as he ought to do in a day. Echizen was frowning at his paperwork like there was something bugging him, anyway, so maybe it was a start.
Later that week, when he saw Echizen and Tezuka-taichou sitting together, eating lunch and not saying a word to each other, he was careful not to smile--at least not until he heard Oishi-san mutter, not-quite-under-his-breath, "It's about damn time."
When progress finally happened, it happened all at once. Oishi-san, Kikumaru-san, and Momo-san were out on patrol, and Yuuta and Echizen had just finished up a practice session when sirens started going off. "What the shit?" he demanded, when Echizen dropped his towel and started running for the door. Yuuta chased after him. "Echizen, what the hell?"
"It's a big one," Echizen said. "Or someone's in trouble. Or both."
"Crap," Yuuta swore, and followed him through the twisting hallways, up a flight of stairs, and another, where they fell in with Inui-san--all the way up to the roof, where Tezuka-taichou already had the jet warming up.
"What is it?" Echizen asked, sliding into the copilot's seat.
"Oishi tagged his distress beacon." Tezuka-taichou's fingers flew over the switches, and the moment Kaidoh-san and Taka-san sprinted up the stairs, he pulled back on the throttle and they lifted off as the two of them belted themselves in. "I haven't been able to raise any of them since."
"Shit," Echizen said. "Do we have--"
"Nothing," Tezuka-taichou said. "Inui?"
Inui-san was balancing a laptop on his knees, typing furiously. "On it," he said.
Yuuta sat in his seat, fidgeting, not sure what--if anything--he ought to be doing. Taka-san and Kaidoh-san were doing the same, so he guessed there wasn't anything he was supposed to do but wait for them to get there, and try not to throw up from air sickness or nerves.
"Whatever it is, it's big and nasty," Inui-san said. He tapped a few more keys. "Tough, too."
"That's the best kind," Taka-san said, keyed up in the way he only ever got when he was about to fight. He was rubbing his hands together. "Sounds like a good time."
Yuuta scooted a little further away from him.
"Did I mention it was big?" Inui-san asked.
"You don't really need to," Echizen said, sounding resigned. "Look."
Yuuta craned his head around the seat in front of him to get a look, and nearly choked at the sheer size of the--well, it looked like it was part lizard and part rock and all pissed-off. "What in the--"
"That idiot Momoshiro ought to be able to handle a Godzilla rip-off in his sleep," Kaidoh said, frowning.
"I don't like this," Tezuka-taichou said, right before something hit the jet.
They lost altitude fast and hard enough that Yuuta's stomach was in his throat and there wasn't enough time to be either terrified or sick. Inui-san swore as his laptop slid out of his grip and smashed against the deck while Tezuka-taichou fought with the controls, leveling them off again. Someone shouted a warning to brace for impact, just before they touched down, bouncing and skidding to a halt.
Echizen was the first to speak, voice raspy over the moaning metal of the jet's frame and the dying sound that the engine was making. "Any landing you can walk away from."
"Can we all walk?" Inui-san asked, and there was a scuffling of seatbelts as everyone checked themselves and each other over.
"What the hell hit us?" Yuuta demanded.
"I don't know," Tezuka-taichou said. "Inui?"
Inui-san was looking at the ruins of his laptop. "I had something." He gestured at the floor. "It's just a hypothesis, but I suspect the big nasty is just a decoy."
"You think?" Echizen snorted, and stretched an arm over his head. "It's a trap and we took the bait. Only way out now is through." He glanced at Tezuka-taichou. "Usual split?"
Tezuka-taichou took a moment to answer, like he was trying to decide, before he nodded. "Usual split."
Taka-san grinned and cracked his knuckles. "All right, let's go." He went to the door, and when it wouldn't open, pried it open, and jumped down to the ground. Inui-san and Kaidoh-san followed after.
Yuuta hesitated. "Um. So where do I--"
"With us," Echizen said, and grinned, sharp. "You're our honorary Shuusuke."
"Great," Yuuta said, under his breath, and fell in with them as they jumped down from the jet.
At first he thought they'd just landed in a quiet part of town, but then he realized that no, they'd landed--well, it looked like a commercial district, but it was deserted. The buildings were silent and dark, and he frowned. "What's up with--"
"Shh," Echizen murmured. "Low profile." He snorted. "Not that's going to stop the whatever-it-is from coming and finding us."
"What do we do then?" Yuuta asked, barely above a whisper.
Echizen's grin was positively feline. "Kick its ass till it runs home crying for mommy, and follow it there."
"And hope that 'mommy' isn't bigger than the three of us can handle," Tezuka-taichou added, tone dry.
"I used to think you'd have to be crazy to want to work a desk job," Yuuta muttered. "Suddenly I can see the appeal." Just to reassure himself, he reached out to the power grid of the city, wrapping a coil of it around himself--
And not a moment too soon; something that was huge and winged and vaguely reminiscent of a monkey came shrieking out of a top-floor window. Echizen lashed out with a gout of flame, and it plummeted to the street in flames--but there were more behind it.
"Behind me," Tezuka-taichou ordered, and lifted a bulwark from the street, asphalt and concrete buckling up and forming a wall for them to shelter behind.
"Ugly things, aren't they?" Echizen observed, wrapping a fireball around two that were flying too close together. "Mad scientist, you think?"
"Almost certainly," Tezuka-taichou said, gesturing; a spike of earth shot up, skewering another of the flying monkey whatevers. "On staff if nothing else." He frowned. "Looks like--"
"Yeah, it does," Echizen agreed. "But they're all in prison."
"Copycat, maybe," Tezuka said.
Yuuta wondered whether they knew how cute it made them look (albeit in a weird, fireball-throwing, laconic kind of way) when they dropped into that mode of finishing each other's sentences, but then another wave of the whatevers came screaming down at them, and he had other things to worry about.
One part of him felt vaguely guilty to be sucking on the city's grid this hard, lashing out at whatevers, knocking them out of the sky to fall in stinking piles. Surely there were people cursing the sudden blackouts just now, wondering what in the world was going on to make their lights flicker.
On the other hand, he couldn't care too much, because no matter how many whatevers they killed, more kept coming, until Yuuta was panting for breath, and even Tezuka-taichou had drops of sweat standing on his forehead.
And they still kept coming. "When's the part when they run home to mommy?" he asked, picking off another two, slower and more clumsily.
"I'd like to know that myself," Tezuka-taichou said, clipped.
"We're doing our job," Echizen said. "They're the ones who aren't playing along."
The worst of it was that there wasn't the space to even think of an alternative solution, barely enough space to breathe. Yuuta propped himself against Tezuka-taichou's bulwark to save himself the energy of standing. "Guys," he said, "I'm running out of steam here."
He wasn't the only one, either, not if the pinched look of Tezuka-taichou's mouth and the way Echizen was laboring for breath were anything to go by. "Do the best you can," Tezuka-taichou told him. "That's all you can do."
This wouldn't be happening if Aniki were here, would it? There would have been a clever plan to get them out of this. Too bad he wasn't Aniki--just an Aniki stand-in. Yuuta zapped another of the whatevers, and another, and reached for the grid to zap a third, but fumbled the connection. "Shit," he said, as he felt his knees starting to give out.
The last thing he heard before he slipped under was Echizen saying, "Shit, we've lost Raitei--"
Every joint in his body hurt when he woke up, and he was tied up, hand and foot, and his cheek was pressed against something cold and metallic that hummed faintly.
To make matters worse, someone was gloating. At length. Something about how this was justice for the years he'd spent locked up, and who was laughing now, Seishun?
Yuuta forced his gummy eyelids open, but all he could see was shoes pacing back and forth--nice ones, leather-soled and polished to the point of gleaming, attached to someone wearing a nice suit, if the tailored details of his trousers were anything to go by--and beyond that, a few more sets of boots that looked like they were henchman-grade at the very least, and valued henchmen at that--they were all leather too, and nice-looking wool uniforms on top of that.
"Can't anyone shut the Monkey King up?" someone--Echizen--groaned, which brought Nice Shoes up short.
"You know," Nice Shoes--Monkey King? Yuuta liked that--purred, "I've had a lot of time to think about all the ways I could make you pay for saddling me with that delightful little nickname."
"I wouldn't advertise being such a slow thinker, if I were you," Echizen said. Sounded like he was coming from somewhere... somewhere higher than the Monkey King was. "Makes you look pretty bad."
Yuuta winced at the meaty sound that followed. Not so high that someone couldn't hit him.
"Stop provoking him," Tezuka-taichou said, sounding as tired as Yuuta felt. "Atobe, what do you want this time?"
Atobe--no, actually, Monkey King was much better--sighed, heavily. "Weren't you listening?"
"You tend to drone," Tezuka-taichou said. "Sorry," he added, not sounding sorry at all.
"It," the Monkey King said, slow and ominous, "is not at all too late for me to open up the shark tank, you know."
"A shark tank, huh? That wouldn't be so bad--it almost has style. Have you been letting Mizuki tutor you?" Echizen again, sugar-sweet.
"Oh, it won't be for you," the Monkey King purred. "I had someone special in mind." He snapped his fingers. "Kabaji."
The biggest set of henchmen boots moved, shuffling past Yuuta's nose, giving him a bad moment, when he thought that special someone was going to be him. All bravado aside, being eaten by sharks wasn't really high on his list of the ways he wanted to die. But the giant boots kept moving past, and he sighed with relief. Something rattled behind him, like a padlock being unlocked, and then a door being pulled open, and--
Echizen made a sound, small and hurt, and Yuuta knew who the special person was after all, especially when Tezuka-taichou whispered, "Shuusuke."
"Can you imagine how lucky I felt when the first thing I found after my escape from prison was him with his guard down?" And the Monkey King was back to gloating. "I don't think he ever realized I was there." He chuckled. "Would you like to watch me feed him to the sharks? I'm afraid I can't let him sober up, of course--having him awake for the experience would be perfect, but giving his proclivities, it's simply not feasible."
Yuuta bit down on his lower lip to keep from growling. The Monkey King was dead. Dead. He just had to figure out how to make it happen.
"What do you want?" Tezuka-taichou asked, raw and hoarse. "What is it, Atobe?"
"More than you can afford," the Monkey King purred. "I'm done with world conquest, you see. All I want now is revenge."
The floor--the deck--whatever it was--hummed underneath his cheek. Every fiber of him was exhausted, but he could feel the energy running through the wires underneath him. All he had to do was--
All he had to do was force his exhausted resources past their limit to reach out for it, find enough strength to pull in enough of it to matter, and more strength to shape it enough that when he used it, he only hit his chosen targets. Oh, yeah, piece of cake. He'd have to get right on that.
The Monkey King snapped his fingers again. "Kabaji. The sharks."
Shit, he really did have to get right on it. Yuuta sucked in a breath and closed his eyes--he'd been unconscious for a while; that had to count for resting, didn't it?--and tried to find the reserves that would let him do what he needed to do.
It was difficult, and the effort made him want to gasp for breath, but he couldn't risk drawing any attention to himself, not when one shot was all he was likely to get. He teased out strands of electricity, slowly--so slowly that Kabaji was wheeling a tank into the room by the time he felt like he had enough energy to do the job.
And meanwhile, Tezuka-taichou and Echizen were--talking. Begging. Apologizing for things that the Monkey King had taken offense at in years past. The Monkey King was drinking it in, swallowing it down, practically purring with gratification. "I've never heard you quite so eloquent, Echizen," he said. "Or so humble. It looks well on you."
"Thank you for saying so," Echizen said, every syllable throbbing with sincerity.
Enough was e-fucking-nough. "Hey, Monkey King," Yuuta rasped, and waited just until the man had figured out who was talking to him. "Go to hell."
It broke just about every rule there was to shoot first--although he was a prisoner, so maybe there were exceptions for the good guys, if they were trying to escape. It shattered them into pieces to shoot to kill. Yuuta figured that a better person probably would have cared, even with the Monkey King starting to sneer down at him. It was just too bad that he wasn't a particularly nice guy, especially not with his family on the line, he decided, and turned loose of the lightning that he was holding.
The results were short, and unpleasant, and likely to keep him vegetarian for the rest of his life--and he didn't even want to think about the nightmares he was going to have. What was worse was the fact that the exertion left him too limp to move even enough to look away, even after it was done and the screaming had stopped.
"Oh my God," someone said, voice weak. "Just what kind of barbarian did you get to replace me, Kunimitsu?"
Yuuta closed his eyes.
Fortunately, the cavalry--consisting of Taka-san in berserker mode, Kaidoh-san, and a somewhat worse-for-the-wear Inui-san--burst in just about then, and Aniki's question got lost in the ensuing confusion as they bustled around, undoing shackles and taking the last couple of surviving henchmen into custody and sussing out where Oishi-san's little team was being held. Yuuta let the fuss go on around him, too tired to move and glad to sit out of the way while Seishun crowded around Aniki to welcome him home.
Aniki wouldn't look in his direction, either, and when Ryuuzaki-sensei sent helicopters to get them home, contrived to be in the one that Yuuta wasn't, which meant that Yuuta rode back to Seishun's headquarters sandwiched between Momo-san and Kaidoh-san, both of whom were uncharacteristically quiet until they touched down on the helipad. "Look," Kaidoh-san said, abruptly, while Taka-san helped Yuuta out of his seat, "back there, with Atobe--did you do that?"
"Yeah," Yuuta said. "He was going to feed Aniki to the sharks. I had to stop him."
"There's stopping someone, and then there's stopping someone," Inui-san murmured.
Yuuta looked away from the four of them. "I know, okay? I wasn't really cut out for the superhero thing. I was just filling in for a little bit." He jerked his head in the direction of the other helicopter. "You've got Aniki back now to be the real thing."
"But you killed--" Momo-san started.
Yuuta looked at him, too tired to even think about holding back. "Why do you think I even asked to join Seishun in the first place? It sure as hell wasn't for the tights. I wanted to--"
Taka-san stopped him before he could finish the thought, surprising him. "I wouldn't go around advertising that," he murmured. "Some people don't understand doing what's necessary."
"Especially when it's family," Kaidoh-san said. He jerked his head in the direction of the door. "Let's get out of this wind."
"...yeah," Momo-san said. "Let's go." He and Inui-san went ahead, faces still stiff with disapproval--well, screw 'em. It hadn't been their family on the line.
Yuuta did his best not to grimace and let Taka-san and Kaidoh-san help him inside and downstairs, wondering at them all the way, at least until the point where Oishi-san appeared at his elbow. "You're needed in the main conference room," he said, and the look on his face was enough to tell Yuuta what he was needed for.
"That didn't take long," he muttered.
"You want us to go with you?" Taka-san murmured.
"Naw, I'll be fine," Yuuta said, and didn't care whether he was lying. He shook their hands off his arm and limped his way down another level, through the atrium, and into the room where all of this had started and was probably about to end.
Tezuka-taichou was there, and Echizen, both of them damn near hovering over Aniki, who was thin and pale but seemed to be in good spirits--at least right up until Yuuta came in. Then he frowned. "Do we really need to do this now?" he murmured.
Yuuta pulled out the closest chair and collapsed into it. "Might as well get it over with," he said, and ran his fingers through his sweat-stiff hair. Everyone else was still in their masks, so he left his on too. "So what's it gonna be, taichou? Am I just kicked out, or is it going to be a trial?"
"It ought to be a trial," Ryuuzaki-sensei said, from somewhere behind him. She joined them at the table, frowning. "Do you have any idea what you did today?"
"He saved Shuusuke's life, that's what he did," Echizen said.
"He killed Atobe Keigo and five of his goons in cold blood," Ryuuzaki-sensei retorted.
"I wouldn't exactly call it cold blood," Yuuta said, not looking at Aniki.
She waved that away as irrelevant. "The fact remains that they are dead, and when the media gets their hands on this, we are going to have a nightmare."
That was about what he'd expected she'd say. "Guess you'd better put me on trial, then," he said, and settled back in his seat, feeling strangely satisfied with himself. Maybe that was the exhaustion, though. It was hard to tell.
"Do you have any idea what your life span'll be like if you get locked up with a bunch of supervillains?" Echizen asked, mouth screwed up in a scowl. "It'll be measured in minutes, and that's if you're lucky."
"Yeah, I kinda figured." Yuuta shrugged, and winced as his muscles protested. "Look, Echizen, I know what I was signing up for. It's cool."
"That solves everything, doesn't it?" Aniki said, all calm and professional, and okay, that did sting a little; he would have hoped Aniki'd be at least a little curious about the guy who'd saved his life, or something. "If he admits what he's done, then I don't see what the problem is with having a trial."
That just seemed to piss Echizen off even more, for all that he was hovering over Aniki, but before he could say anything, Tezuka-taichou broke in. "There's not going to be a trial."
"There has to be something," Ryuuzaki-sensei said, still wearing her frown. "We can't just go around killing every supervillain who irritates us."
"I don't know, I kind of like the idea," Echizen said, with that fierce little smile of his. "It's efficient."
"Echizen!" Ryuuzaki-sensei sounded scandalized. Tezuka-taichou looked like he might have been trying not to smile, and when Yuuta snuck a glance at Aniki, he was frowning.
"Well, it is," Echizen muttered, sullenly.
"That's not how we operate, Ryouma," Tezuka-taichou murmured. "Even if the idea does have its merits."
"And why aren't you going to send him to trial, again?" Aniki asked. "I'd love to hear your reasoning, Kunimitsu."
"Because he's--"
"'Scuse me, taichou, can I say something?" Yuuta interrupted, before Tezuka-taichou could get into his explanation. Tezuka-taichou raised his eyebrows, but inclined his head. "Look, I signed on to fill in for--Tensai-san," he said, tripping just a little bit over Aniki's codename. "Now you've got him back, and you don't really need me around anymore. You probably ought to send me to trial, because I did kill the Monkey King, and I don't regret it. He was out for blood, and I don't think that was going to change no matter how many times you threw him in prison. So if you have to do what's right, I'm not going to object."
"What, do you want to be a martyr or something?" Echizen demanded, rolling his eyes. "We're not going to send you to trial, so shut up already."
"Well, he certainly can't stay on the team like this," Aniki said.
Ryuuzaki-sensei nodded. "It would be a PR nightmare," she agreed.
Yuuta sucked in a breath and closed his eyes; yeah, he'd figured it was going to come to this. Funny how he had thought getting kicked off would be easier to take than getting put on trial. "Fine," he said. "I'll try not to let the door hit me on my way out." He set his hands on the table and pushed himself up out of his chair, trying not to groan at the aches in his muscles. "Can I leave my stuff here for a couple of days, till I find a place to crash?"
Tezuka-taichou was frowning. "I don't think we need to go that far."
Yuuta snorted, and stripped off a glove. "No, I really think we do, taichou." He scrabbled his fingernails under the edge of the Seishun insignia on his shoulder, and ripped it off with some difficulty. "I think we all know I wasn't really cut out for this gig, don't we?" He dropped the patch on the table, and peeled off his mask. "I'll call when I find out where you can send my stuff. Will that work okay?"
Aniki made a strangled sound that might have been his name. Yuuta wasn't looking at him, just at Tezuka-tai--no, Tezuka-san, who nodded after a moment. "Take whatever time you need," he said, after a moment. "We'll hold onto it until you get settled again."
"Yeah, cool." Yuuta turned away, starting for the door.
"This is bullshit," Echizen announced, interrupting his dramatic moment and his momentum. "Sit your ass down, Yuuta, before you fall over."
That really wasn't fair, and Yuuta gave him a dirty look. "I'm not going to fall over."
Echizen rolled his eyes. "Oh, sure, and that's why your knees are shaking. Sit down and be reasonable."
"I'm being perfectly reasonable," Yuuta snapped, and compromised by leaning against a chair. "Or do I need to submit a letter of resignation to quit?" Aniki was staring at him, looking like he didn't know whether he wanted to be angry, appalled, or just plain stunned, and had settled on a mixture of all three.
"Well, there is an exit interview," Ryuuzaki-sensei said, tone bone-dry. "You don't have to walk out right this instant, either. When I said that we couldn't keep you on as we had been, I was thinking more in terms of internal discipline rather than outright firing you."
"Then you should have said so," Yuuta snapped, and decided he'd take that seat after all. He crossed his arms and scowled at her. "What kind of internal discipline?"
"Counseling, certainly, and we'll have to dock your pay for a while, and you'll have to be supervised," she said, ticking the items of on her fingers. "We'll have to show that we've reformed you, of course. Perhaps Tensai can do that, while he gets back in condition."
Yuuta let the words wash over him, and he could see his future in them: Aniki holding his hand and watching his every move, just in case he should happen to snap and start killing bad guys all over again. "I... see," he said.
"I can do that," Aniki agreed, which was the first thing he'd said since Yuuta'd taken the mask off. "It'll be just like old times."
Oh fuck. Yuuta took a deep breath. "I... think I need to talk to Aniki alone for a moment. You mind?"
Ryuuzaki-sensei nodded. "Of course not. Gentlemen?" She withdrew, followed by Tezuka-san and Echizen, but not before they'd both managed to squeeze Aniki's shoulder (Tezuka-san) and ruffle a hand through his hair (Echizen).
Might as well get the easy stuff out of the way first. "So congratulations," Yuuta said, after a moment. "They're nice guys. Better than the ones you used to date."
Aniki looked surprised--yeah, he hadn't been expecting that--and then he flushed. "You, ah, found out about that?"
Yup, that was Aniki, all over. Good to know the Monkey King's drugs hadn't destroyed his basic personality. "They were basket cases about you, in their own dysfunctional ways. It was kind of hard to miss." Yuuta sighed, and swiveled his chair around to look at him full-on. "If you ever feed me a line about how brothers don't keep secrets from each other again, I'm going to kick your ass so hard your waist'll be up near your ears."
Aniki had the grace to look embarrassed, at least. "I did mean to tell you," he said, and waved a hand. "About all of it."
Yuuta propped his chin up on a fist. "Yeah? When?"
"Oh... when you were thirty or forty, maybe. It's..." Aniki's voice trailed off, and it was quiet when he spoke again. "Well, you've seen. It's dangerous, sometimes. I didn't want you to be involved. I don't think I could stand it if I lost you, too."
Yuuta snorted. "Yeah? You ever think about how I might feel if the tables got turned?" Not likely; Aniki never thought about bad things happening to himself. Never had, as far as Yuuta could remember.
"Not hard enough," Aniki said. "I'm sorry, Yuuta."
Yuuta nodded. "Accepted." So much for the easy parts. He laced his fingers together and looked at Aniki. "So. Barbarian, huh?"
Aniki sucked in a breath. "You heard that."
"Yeah." He wasn't likely to forget it, either, no matter what Aniki said next. Well, he wasn't likely to forget anything that he'd done or seen or heard today. "It was pretty--bad, wasn't it?"
"I... yes. And no." Aniki hesitated, and Yuuta looked down again, not wanting to see the indecision on his brother's face. "It was... awful. But not as awful as I thought it was when you weren't--personally involved. If that makes sense." He paused again. "If our positions had been switched... I would have done something similar. So you're no more a barbarian than I am."
Yuuta looked up at him. "You mean that?" Because Aniki could be pretty lenient sometimes, and if he was making excuses just because it was Yuuta who'd done, not some other superhero--
"Of course I do," Aniki said.
"Then how come you were all for sending me to a trial before you knew it was me?" Yuuta asked.
Aniki looked trapped, for a split second. "I just told you," he said. "I didn't know it was--personal. And besides, it's not like you're going to do it again, so--"
"But I would," Yuuta told him. He took a breath. "I would do it again, and again, if I had to."
Aniki stopped, and several seconds ticked by before he responded. "Don't be silly, Yuuta. It was a fluke, and besides, I'll be around to keep it from happening again--"
"What if you're not?" Yuuta asked, quietly. "What if you end up in trouble again?" Aniki opened his mouth, but he kept going. "It happened once, so it can happen again. Do you really think I wouldn't move heaven and earth to help you? Or kill anyone who was hurting you?" And now to see how Aniki would react to that.
Aniki opened and closed his mouth a few times before he managed to say something. "Yuuta." Definitely appalled. "You can't just--there are rules--"
Rules. Yeah. "Since when have I ever cared about rules, Aniki?" Yuuta asked him, and shrugged. "I told you. I'm not cut out for this job."
Aniki's face was white. "I raised you better than that," he said, finally.
"You raised me to put family first," Yuuta corrected him. When he smiled, it felt crooked on his face. "Why are you so surprised that it took?"
Aniki took a deep breath, and then another, and by the time he took the third, it looked like he'd managed to collect himself. "Be that as it may," he said, "we'll just have to make sure that a situation like that won't ever come up again."
Yuuta glanced at the Seishun patch lying on the conference table. "I think we already did that."
"Don't quit," Aniki said, after a moment. "It's not... it's not something you can walk away from. And besides, I want a chance to work with you."
"Then maybe you should have taken the block off my powers before we got into this mess," Yuuta said, and the way Aniki flinched at that confirmed what he'd suspected ever since he'd woken up in the infirmary the day Tezuka-san had brought him here.
Aniki smoothed his face out again, and ignored the jab. "What will you do, if you're not going to work here?"
Yuuta shrugged. "Dunno. I'll figure something out." He'd start with seeing whether Akazawa-san would let him have his old job back, and go on from there.
"Are you quitting because of me?" Aniki asked, all in a rush. "Because if you are, I can--surely we can do something. You don't have to--"
That was the problem; the more he thought about it, the more Yuuta was starting to think that maybe he did have to, if only so he could get his own head straightened out, and so maybe Aniki could do the same. He held up his hand and stopped Aniki. "Let it go, Aniki."
Aniki set his jaw. "Yuuta--"
"It'll be fine, Aniki. Let it go."
Aniki looked mutinous for a second, and that was kind of funny, because Yuuta thought thathe was supposed to be the stubborn one; then he shook his head. "What am I going to do with you?"
His chest felt tight, all of a sudden--how many times had he heard that, growing up? "Put up with me," Yuuta told him.
"...because I can't strangle you," Aniki finished. "You're sure?"
Yuuta nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure."
Aniki sighed. "I guess that's it, then."
"Yeah, it is." Yuuta pushed himself to his feet. "I'll let you know where I land, 'kay?" Aniki was quiet, so he shrugged and started for the door, only to stop short when Aniki said his name. "What?" He wouldn't put it past Aniki to try to talk him out of this one more time.
Aniki was staring at his hands. "I wish you wouldn't have done it that way, but... thank you." He looked up. "For, you know. Saving me from the shark tank."
Yuuta grinned a little at that, and it almost didn't hurt. "Hey. What else are little brothers for?" He shrugged. "Try to keep yourself out of trouble, huh? So I don't have to do it again?"
"You do the same," Aniki told him.
Yuuta snorted. "Yeah, well. I'll try. Later, Aniki."
Aniki looked like maybe he wanted to say something else, but in the end he just tipped his head into a little bow. "Later, Yuuta," he said.
Yuuta returned the nod, squared his shoulders, and did his best not to wobble on his way out the door.