Gatekeepers Encore
"Kageyama!" The boy screamed. "Why? Why! This isn't who you really are!" All around, cybernetic black shards shattered under impact, falling away, almost beautiful as they glistened. "Kageyama!" He cried, scarcely noticing the black-hole threatening to engulf them all. "KAGEYAMA!!"
He smiled. With all his plans and ambitions disintegrating around him, it seemed a strange thing to do. He smiled.
Ukiya Shun. Why wasn't he surprised it would come to this? Only a little. He hadn't expected it to be so soon. He could have used a friend like him. Too hot-blooded for him, perhaps, but a good man with heart to spare. Too much. So this is why they chose him for Captain.
He crooked his knee and with what he felt to be his last strength, kicked the fool back to earth. All around, a darkness drew him and his Invader troops in. How pretty, that perfect circle embraced in spiralling arms of the sun. How soft and warm the dark silence.
"Looks like you took a fall, Shadow." A voice laughed. Unsympathetic, unmenacing. "Or is that Kageyama Reiji?"
The Gatekeeper code-named Shadow cracked his eyes briefly, and fell back into a velvety recline. It was too dark to gather any detail, but it was oddly familiar and comforting enough, as were his companions. A cool hand brushed his brow and picked those huge sunglasses off.
"Had fun?"
"It's okay." He managed.
Someone snickered. "You incurable fool."
"There is... a bigger fool."
"Oh, really?"
Ukiya Shun. Shadow smiled. "Yes."
"You like him, ne?"
"Yes." He smiled. "It is very... interesting, being with him."
Questions satisfied, a small double circle opened over his brow, a gentle lulling rhythm of amethyst showering softly glowing sparks that sent him to a fitful rest with soft hands across his brow and a more firm, bemused raffle in his hair.
* * * "I failed... again." Kurogane Megumi looked down at the unconscious form of her arch-rival, Ikusawa Ruriko, suddenly befuddled. "I hate you." She mused in her whispery murmur, "So why do I protect you?"
Shadow might have been blamed for it. They needed Ikusawa to open the Gate of Genocide, the forbidden Gate. That is... until their plans foiled. They... She, had failed. There just wasn't enough hate in the girl to rouse her to negativity. That, or she had failed to find any.
Mortifyingly dismissed, she had become, to the only person who saw and appreciated her strengths, a useless tool, a "weird woman". Trampled, again. Yet, none of that explained why she had instinctively thrown herself protectively over Ikusawa when Shadow's robot fell apart and the black-hole ripped open in the sky.
She couldn't go back to the Gatekeepers now, not shamed as she is and a traitor to boot.
"You're pathetic." She told herself quietly, still holding on to the other Gatekeeper.
And yet... and yet... She can't leave. No, she cannot. She needed to prove to them that she was better, than all of them. Any one of them. All of them together. Better, even than Kageyama. She'll show them... She had to... ... and to get kicked out now... "The shame..." "You can do it."
What?
"You can become better than all of them put together."
Megumi looked up, eyes wide, watching a strange, blonde person -- it was impossible to discern if it was man or woman -- seemingly exit from the very solid leg of the Gate Robot.
"You are..." The only way that would be possible...
"You can be better than anyone at all." The stranger extended a hand towards her, inviting. He (She?) smiled, but his eyes remained cold. "The Gate of Life, the Gate of Shadow, neither will be any match for you. Not even the Gate of Ice. Come see."
"What..." Megumi gulped. "What do I have to do."
"Nothing, Megumi. Just trust me."
Megumi looked from her to Ikusawa.
"She will be fine," The Stranger said. "I promise."
Megumi stepped away, assured, at least, of that. The hand was cold. Chillingly so. Megumi shivered. What strange eyes, red and blue, static with promises of power and recognition.
"How do you know my name?"
"I know many things."
Something dark cycled behind them.
Ruriko woke alone.
In the excitement, no-one particularly remembered Megumi until she turned up again. It was assumed that she hid herself in mortification and little was said for that. they were too busy over Ukiya and being embarrassed around her for questions. It made her seethe a little. She didn't need any pity. Just like she told that stranger at the foot of the Gate Robot: "I do not want or need your pity. I can be strong all on my own. Save it for some other fool."
Like Ukiya Shun.
The boy was a wreak ever since. Kageyama told him too much, and not enough. He was constantly depressed now, haunted in every empty space by visions of the boy that turned out to be his nemesis Shadow, and Invaders.
"There is," He can sometimes be caught mumbling, "No hope for mankind." At times like this, he seemed a cross between Shadow and Kurogane Megumi. It was like that time with Fukuoka-sensei, except there was no-one to help him over it now.
Ruriko avoids him whenever possible, with embarrassed school-girl modesty. Megane worships the ground he walks on. Feye took her duties home to Shanghai, where Invaders still ran amok, more thickly than in Japan, after the 1970 Tokyo affair, as it had come to be called. Bancho and Kaoru barely noticed much aside each other. They made a cute couple, but that didn't stop them from being half-crazed barbarian maniacs. Reiko never noticed much, coming from a Gatekeeper who spends most of her time collecting souvenirs. Shun generally avoids everyone.
Japan was peaceful, on most part. The bulk of Invaders were vanquished along with Kageyama through the mysterious black-hole. What was left were random disorganised groups hiding deep underground, waiting for their chance to lash out again, albeit feebly. The glory days were over. The team fell into its own little pieces and drifted apart from each another. Life goes on. The season changes. Some things don't; like Ochiai-san's relationship with Shirei, still stagnant. Once a week Feye sends a postcard for everyone. Bancho hasn't managed to open his Gate a second time yet.
Megumi was... Megumi.
Stronger, now, in spirit and resolve. Thanks to Kageyama, she is on her feet and standing tall while everyone else slacked down. Wiser, now. To rely on someone else's power and recognition is to submit oneself to that power. The only way that could end is to become the other's tool. She knew this now. She will be strong, in her own power. She will suppress all of them without any help and then, no-one will be able to use her and everyone will just have to see how good she is. She trains, privately, readying for the day when she will overpower them. They wouldn't know what hit them. Only that she, Kurogane Megumi, has.
"Hmph. Pathetic blind fools."
Ending Theme: The Last of Spring