Hoji and all Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger characters belong to Toei. I am using them without permission, but I am not and don't expect to make money with them.
Rated T, for teens. Brief sexuality and mature concepts.
This contains mild slash, meaning a male/male relationship. If you dislike that idea, don't read this. It's set immediately after episode 11, 'Pride Sniper', with spoilers for that ep., which was very closely adapted into the Power Rangers S.P.D. episode 'Idol' although with a very different tone.
I'm a newcomer to Sentai, but have seriously fallen in love with Dekaranger, and am on the verge with Abaranger. Many thanks to MzDany for encouragement and especially to Nalanzu for beta reading and patient answering of questions.
A Deka's Pride
"Do you know what guides this hand? A Deka's pride..."
I looked down at that hand. My right hand. The hand Vino had injured when he shot me. The hand that had finally defeated him. The hand that had killed him. It trembled before my eyes. I would have sooner cut off this hand than have destroyed the person I had once loved, and still loved in some twisted way that refused to die. And yet... there had been no choice. Vino had given me none. Vino and my own pride. My honor.
My hand must have been reinjured in the fight, or so the medics in the infirmary at SPD said. From the looks they had given me, that wasn't all they were concerned about. I knew it myself. The wound was truly in my heart, but the hand that had pulled the trigger was what I blamed, and the burning pain I felt was its punishment.
They had patched me up again, and against my protests given me a painkiller. I hadn't wanted it, because I wanted to hurt. I should have suspected when I saw Swan talking quietly to the doctor, her kind and gentle eyes turned to watch me, and now I knew that the shot had been more than what they said. Now, left behind in the dark and the quiet, I could close my eyes and try to let the drugs keep me from thinking. My mind had blurred almost to the point of sleep, but not quite. I held on to consciousness. Sleep might bring dreams. And dreams would bring him back.
"Vino..." I whispered.
"Hoji." The voice seemed to float on the air, soft and familiar. Comforting. In my hazy state, I didn't bother wondering about it.
"How could he do this to me? How could he force me to fight him? To... to..." I curled my hand into a fist, the physical pain only a twinge compared to what was deeper inside me.
"You had to do it. Don't blame yourself."
"We were friends. And more. So close. I thought I knew him. Our hearts as one."
"Tell me about him, if you want. Talk about it. Maybe that would make it better."
"Talk about it... It was four years ago... No, five..."
His hair was red then, with a black streak, when we first met in school. It was the first thing I noticed about him, that fiery hair, the angular face, and the intensity in his eyes. I would discover later that Vino liked to change his appearance. He was never satisfied with himself. Maybe that should have told me something. The first time we met was when we were put together for a training session. Target practice; fittingly enough that was the way it started.
"Hey, you're pretty good." I watched as he squeezed the trigger, intense concentration on his face.
Again, he hit the target, even closer to the center this time. With a little smile, he lowered his arm. "Thanks. Your turn."
I aimed carefully, sighting down the barrel, taking my time, conscious of his eyes on me and anxious to impress. At the last moment my hand wavered as my finger pressed the trigger. My shot hit the edge. "Damn," I muttered.
"Focus. Narrow your mind," he murmured. He stepped closer, touching my elbow to adjust my aim. "Try it again."
His presence so near that I could almost feel the warmth of his body did nothing to improve my concentration, but I did as he said, taking a slow, even breath to steady myself. Whether it was inspiration or just luck, this time the blast was almost dead center. As well as he had done.
"Not bad," he said. "I'll just have to do even better."
"You can try," I responded.
"It's a good thing to have a worthy opponent." His smile seemed to transform his face, for an instant wiping away the distant, almost guarded quality it often had, softening it into friendliness. I was dazzled. "I'm Vino," he said, holding out a hand.
"I'm Hoji. And yeah. It's a good thing."
"So competition turned into friendship." The voice intruded into the memory of Vino's smile and how it had made me feel.
"Yes. That was only the beginning. Only the beginning..."
"Go on."
"Mind if I sit here?" Startled, I looked up to find Vino standing over me, his lunch tray in his hands.
"Sure. I mean, of course I don't mind." I took a quick glance around the school lunchroom as he sat down. There weren't a lot of empty tables, but there were some. He had wanted to be with me, and not just because he needed a seat.
"How's it going?"
"Pretty good." I searched for something else to say. "So - what else are you taking besides sharpshooting?"
"Chem. Bio. History. The usual stuff. Plus martial arts." He shrugged. "I'm in the law enforcement track."
"Really? Me too! I'm applying to SPD as soon as I'm eligible."
"So am I," Vino said with a quick grin.
"Maybe - maybe we could study together sometimes."
"That's a good idea." He gave me a longer, more thoughtful look and added, "We seem to have a lot in common."
"Yeah, I guess we do." We smiled at each other.
"You both wanted to join SPD, even back then. Maybe that's why you became friends quickly."
"That was a part of it, but not all. We saw things the same way. Had the same dreams of the future. From then on we were together almost every day... Studying, practicing, meals, sports..." I lifted my bandaged hand to my chest. "Our rivalry made both of us work harder. We competed at shooting... and for grades..."
Our competitive natures... It was another thing we had in common, the need to be the best, but somehow it never got in the way of our friendship, it only gave us both more motivation. Overall, we were almost evenly matched. He could beat me easily on the firing range, but I was better at martial arts. We taught each other, urged each other to try harder. It brought us closer, over the months that quickly became a year.
"You're sure everything's in there?" Vino smiled, his tone lightly teasing.
"Of course. Just worry about your own application."
"I'm ready." He opened the cover of the mailbox and held his envelope over it. "Let's drop them in together."
"Ready." I held mine next to his. "One... two... three..."
"Go!" We both let go and watched the two envelopes, stuffed with our application forms for SPD, slide into the box. There was a muffled thump. We looked at each other.
"You'll be accepted," I said as we turned and started for the school buildings, walking slowly. We had met early, just for this little ceremony, and there was plenty of time before our first classes. "With your marksmanship and your grades, no problem."
"You too. We'll both get in. It's a sure thing."
We went on in silence for a few minutes then, each with his own thoughts, mine inevitably turning to the future that suddenly seemed closer than ever before. We had a few months more of school, and then, if we were accepted, six weeks of SPD training before our rookie assignments. Our lives would change beyond recognition as we left school, home, family, friends, everything. Out of some kind of loneliness, I guess, I reached for the one thing I most wanted to take with me.
"I hope we're assigned together. To the same unit." I glanced at him quickly.
"It would be nice if we could work together."
But it's unlikely. He didn't have to say it. Despite the excitement of the day, my heart descended a notch. For just a moment, I wanted to go back, open that mailbox somehow, find my letter of application and Vino's and tear them up. They meant one more step along the road to graduation, to a career, to adulthood. To separation. Suddenly I was afraid.
"As long as we're both in the city, we'll see each other a lot," he said, almost seeming to read my thoughts. "As long as we're both in Japan. It's not a big country."
"Right." I forced a smile. "Hell, as long as we're both on Earth, we'll manage it."
"Of course we will."
"Just watch, I'm going to make it into the Dekaranger program."
"And I'll end up as your commanding officer!"
"No way!"
"We'll save the world every other day! And be rich and famous!" Vino grinned and turned to face me, skipping backwards a few steps. "Come on! Race you!"
"And you were both accepted."
"Yes... our letters came on the same day. As if it was fate."
"But - you weren't assigned together."
"No." My throat closed on that bitter-sweet memory.
"When did you find out?"
"We got our final duty assignments at the end of basic training. I had a month to report here, to Dekabase. But Vino... Vino had to leave right away." I could almost see it, and smell it, and hear the sound of it. The memory was so strong, for a few moments I was back in that little room, reliving that last evening with him...
"Biriza. The planet Biriza. Sounds exciting, doesn't it?"
"It sounds far away." I sat on a bench watching as he paced restlessly, fingers playing with the thin silver SPD band around his wrist, just like mine, the ones we had both received along with our notices of assignment. We were alone in a small locker room outside the showers at the school. It had been Vino's idea to come here late tonight for a last contest of skill on the empty firing range, one he had won as easily as usual.
"I'll be back to visit. Maybe I'll be sent back here some day."
"Won't you miss your family?"
"Of course I will. I'll miss everything here." He had stopped and was standing with his back turned, shoulders slightly hunched.
"You could turn it down. Ask for another assignment."
"Turn it down?" He faced me again, his face pinched but controlled. "Hoji, this is what we've both been working for all this time. It's the start of my career. Working off-planet is an honor. A great opportunity to be of help where I'm most needed. I can't turn it down."
"I guess."
He came closer and stood in front of me. "Things change," he said after a moment. "We have to change too."
I tried to smile. "Is that why you changed your hair?" I still hadn't gotten used to the pale blond, swept-back hair or the implanted studs now decorating his forehead.
"I suppose. New life, new look."
New life. Without me. "I don't want you to go," I whispered, almost afraid to look up, afraid he'd see too much in the face I finally turned to him.
"Will you miss me?" The question was very soft. I nodded mutely.
Slowly, he knelt at my feet, his eyes now slightly below mine. Slowly, he raised a hand towards me, his fingers very lightly stroking my cheek, caressing the angle of my jaw, through my hair to curl around the back of my neck. Showing only a hint of hesitation, he leaned forward, his lips touching mine, as if he had no real fear that I would reject him. As if he knew all along that this was what I wanted, maybe more than he did, as if he knew this was another thing we had in common. He stopped and left me only long enough to lock the door. We made a pile of towels and our own clothing on the floor, and lay on it together.
I had never done anything like it before, with anyone. It had been so much more than my guilty fantasies alone in my bed at night. So much more. I was roughly pulled from that shadowy memory as tears stung my eyes; my breathing turned into harsh gasps until a sudden stab of pain in my hand eased. The voice from the darkness was silent as I struggled to find control though the haze in my mind.
"I saw him one more time," I went on finally, when I could speak. "When we said goodbye. We met at the school again, alone again, only for a few minutes. We smiled at each other, and pretended everything was all right. We made plans, and promises."
"Think of me when you practice your shooting, Hoji-chan. Always try to be the best. Work hard, and someday maybe you can beat me."
"That won't happen, but I'll try." I watched his face as I said after a moment, "No matter where we're assigned, our hearts will be one."
He smiled and nodded, and held up his right hand to me, the silver band on his wrist glinting in the light. I returned the gesture, and there was a faint clink as the two bracelets met. "I swear on this," he glanced at our wrists, "to fight until the universe is at peace."
"Until the universe is at peace..." I echoed faintly, years later. "Vino was a Deka. He believed as I did, in peace and justice. How could he have changed so much? Or did I never know him?"
"Something must have happened to him. Something must have changed him."
I was quiet for a few seconds, remembering what Vino had said to me in the courtyard, just after he had tried to kill Cruger and almost succeeded. "Money," I said softly. "He said it was money. But it was more. He was... bitter. He said the Special Police give up their lives all the time, and get nothing in return except hate and fear. He said - he wanted something for himself for once."
"That was his reason to become an assassin?"
"Yes. He used his greatest talent, not to protect people, but to kill them. For money."
"And he became Gigantes."
"How could he... how could he turn himself into that monster? Twist his own body and mind until he wasn't even human anymore? How could he betray me, use me to get into Dekabase, so he could murder my boss? No amount of money, no amount of bitterness can explain it."
"I suppose we'll never know. But..." There was a sigh. "The man you knew must have been gone long ago. Whatever hurt him, and changed him from that boy you went to school with, and then the drugs he took to transform himself... You didn't kill Vino. He was already dead."
The blunt words hurt, but they helped me focus. I smiled bitterly. "In a way, you're right. The monster we fought at the end wasn't Vino. The creature I deleted wasn't him." I closed my eyes against the memory. The others had held back, out of respect, and let me fire the fatal shot. He was my friend, and my responsibility. Much as I would have wished for someone else to do it, I had known it must be me, even as I murmured my last words to him. "Goodbye. Forever."
"But... Vino was here today," I said after a moment. "When he faced me in the courtyard... he shot me." I cradled my injured right hand with my left. "He could have killed me easily. But he didn't, despite the urge to kill his transformation had given him. He walked away. That was Vino. That was the last I saw of the man I knew."
"Then... maybe you set him free."
"Free?" It was a new thought. Had I freed my boyhood friend and momentary lover from the hellish distortion he had turned his life into? I felt myself relax a little, my fingers finding it as my eyes closed again and I finally let myself accept the idea of sleep. A thin silver band with SPD engraved on it. Vino had broken mine, but I had found his, and it was now around my wrist. Where it would stay, as a reminder, and as the one thing I had left of him. Forever.
There was light when I woke and blinked up blearily at the ceiling. Morning. I wondered where I was, until I looked around and recognized the infirmary. And the person slumped awkwardly in a chair next to my bed, sound asleep.
"Ban?" I said, my voice coming out in a hoarse croak.
His eyelids fluttered. He groaned, squirmed uncomfortably, and then opened his eyes. They widened. "Partner!" he exclaimed loudly.
"Turn down the volume, will you?" I grumbled, wincing.
"Are you all right? How do you feel?"
"I'm okay." Experimentally, I sat up and flexed my right hand. It twinged, but only with the normal ache of a healing blaster wound. Nothing seemed physically wrong beyond what felt like a mild hangover. And Ban's voice, as usual a few decibels above what was necessary, wasn't helping.
"Great! We were all worried. Boss says you should take the day off. A couple of days. You can have a vacation!"
"Yeah, right." I swung my feet off the bed and stood. Part of me was tempted by the idea of crawling off to my room to hide from the world, but time off - time by myself, to think and remember - was the last thing I needed right now. Besides, there were things I had to do, and something I had to know. Who had sent Vino here? Who had hired him to assassinate Kruger? Beyond that, I knew someday I'd have to try to answer the deeper question that hung over the memories I had relived. Who or what was the devil that had whispered in his ear and changed him into what he had become?
"I'll be back on duty as soon as I get cleaned up," I muttered.
"Partner, are you sure you're okay?" The question stopped me halfway to the door.
"Don't call me partner," I said automatically, turning back. But seeing him still sitting there, beside the bed... "Were you there all night?" I asked.
"We thought someone should stay with you."
"I..." Oh, no. Memory flooded back, dark and confused, but... "Did I... did I say anything?"
He grinned and jumped to his feet. "You mumbled a few times. Nothing I could understand."
"Oh. Good," I said, staring at him suspiciously. He looked back, wide-eyed and guileless. Impossible that it wouldn't show if he had heard all the shamefully intimate things I thought I had said in my pain and drug-filled ramblings. Relieved, I started for the door again.
"We're all proud of you, you know. Proud to be Dekas with you."
His voice was so sincere, I turned back again. His voice... had his voice been the one that had spoken to me during the night? The gentle, understanding voice that had guided me through the darkness? No, it was impossible that this noisy, clownish upstart could have that kind of sensitivity. Still, I had seen the compassionate side of his nature, the kindness that occasionally emerged from his rough manners, or lack of them. Could it be?
He grinned at me again and walked by on his way out, giving me a friendly smack on the shoulder as he passed. I followed more slowly. No, there was no way. The voice must have been only in my head; I must have been dreaming; it couldn't have been real. Ban? It was impossible. Wasn't it?
- End -