A/N: I don't own World Trigger
Mimics
Chapter 21: Lab Visit
Yuma stretched his arm above his head, staring through the darkness at his ring. Lying in a bed, doing nothing, all night was so boring, but with it being late, everyone was sleeping or at home. There was no one to fight and Yuma couldn't do his normal hobby of sitting on the roof, watching the stars, since it was dangerous now with the Mimics.
Honestly, it would be just as dangerous on the roof as it was lying in the barracks. The only difference was the number of walls the Mimics would have to plow through if they even managed to get pass the agents on defense duty.
Still, he agreed to stay in the barracks if only to comfort his friends.
It was a comfort to them, but it hurt him so much. They were all sleeping soundly, which was good for them, but for Yuma, surrounded by the silence of his friends' sleeping forms, he had never felt more alone.
When he lost Replica, Yuma spent the nights preparing strategies for Rank Wars or studying his past battles to see where he could improve on. It was something he could do even now while lying in a bed, but he couldn't get his mind to move away from his father.
There were only three more days until the anniversary of his death.
A Mimic of Dad and Mogami were running around.
Yuma's body was cracking.
It felt like the breaking point was near.
*Mimics*
"Good morning!"
The owner of the voice alone was enough to pull a groan from Hyuse, but the loudness of it just added another layer of annoyance. He pulled his pillow out from under his head and launched it at Jin's face. Out of the corner of his eyes, to his aggravation, he saw Jin dodge the pillow. "Do you have to be so loud first thing in the morning?"
"We have a long day ahead us. Need to start early." Jin replied.
Hyuse snarled at him. "That doesn't mean you need to yell in people's ears to wake them."
"He didn't seem that loud to me." Yuma said, sitting crisscrossed on the next bed, looking far too awake.
Pushing himself into a sitting position, Hyuse stared at Yuma, who stared right on back. "You're in a Trion body."
Yuma quirked a brow at him. "We established that last night."
"Trion bodies aren't capable of sleeping." Hyuse glared at Yuma. "All those comments we made about how you survive on so little sleep and here you just don't sleep at all."
"I don't see why you're mad about it." Yuma replied.
"Because some of us do require sleep!" Hyuse snarled, shifting his glare to Jin, who remained unaffected by it.
"It's good to see everyone getting along." Rindo said as he stepped into the barracks, a steaming cup of coffee in hand. "Yuma, we're meeting Kinuta-san soon so you should go get breakfast before we do. I don't know how long he's going to keep you so eat up now."
"That's what going on this morning?" Hyuse snapped at Jin as Yuma slipped out of the barracks, pulling the hood of his hoodie up over his head as he did. "Why did you wake me then? I could be sleeping."
"Because you should get up and support your teammate." Jin replied.
Hyuse turned himself on the bed, swinging his legs over to plant his feet on the ground as he scowled at Jin. "He's not going to die in the next couple of hours and I'm not going anywhere to support him if he's going to be with your higher ups."
"You sure are confident he'll be fine."
Hyuse resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "If Yuma were to die in the next hour, you wouldn't be so calm."
Jin grimaced. He was far from relaxed. The situation only kept getting worse with each passing day. He was able to predict the future, but it didn't seem to be helping them at all in the past couple of days. "Things are going to get worse."
"Before they get better, though?" Konami asked, though having seen the state of Yuma's body, no matter what Jin said, she didn't think the uneasiness was ever going to leave her. "Jin? Yuma will be fine, right?"
The pressure of having everyone stare at him as they waited for his response would have once been stifling to Jin. The pressure of expectations was tough to live with and Jin only managed to get through it because of his allies having his back and helping him complete his plans. They trusted him and had his back so it was only right for Jin to return the favor. "I'm not going to give you false hope by lying to you."
"It's that bad?" Yuri asked.
"Even if Yuma had been truthful from the start, he wasn't wrong in saying that it wouldn't have changed the outcome."
Konami's heart skipped the next couple of beats. From Jin's expression, it was an answer she had been expecting, but it still didn't take away the fear of the future or her anger. Her anger at the Black Trigger assassin for targeting a child so viciously and forcing Yugo to make the ultimate sacrifice for Yuma. Her anger at Yuma for keeping quiet and trying to handle everything alone. Her anger at the Mimics for the pain they were causing Yuma and Jin.
She wanted to help, but she wasn't good at the technical stuff. She excelled in fighting. Rindo wanted to send Yuma to Kinuta, though she wasn't sure what he could do to help, it was more than what she could do. Kinuta could handle that part. In the meantime, Konami was itching to fight. Would fighting the Mimics help? She didn't know, but it was what she could do. Sitting around, thinking of what could happen, would just be a waste of time, which is something they seemed to be short on.
"It's simple, isn't it?" Karasuma asked, rubbing the back of his neck as he thought. "The problem with Yuma started with the Mimics, so we just kill them, right?"
"You make it sound easy." Jin scratched the back of his head. "Besides, I can't see the Mimics future. It's possible we do manage to defeat them, but if that is a possible future, why does Yuma's death seem so set in stone?"
"Maybe it means the Mimics aren't the cause for Yuma's body breaking." Reiji suggested.
"But Cronin-san is convinced the cause isn't Yuma's body dying. So, what else could there be?" Konami asked, receiving no reply from anyone as no one had any idea.
*Mimics*
"The more I learn about this Kuga Yugo," Kinuta mumbled. He was staring at Yuma, just trying to find something off about him. He never bothered to look too closely at the Neighbor, but now that he knew he was living in a Trion body, he wanted to see if there was something he missed that was off about him, but he couldn't see it. To be able to create a Black Trigger while making a perfect Trion body copy for his son, this Kuga Yugo just kept getting more impressive. It was a shame the man was dead. There was probably so much he could tell them about Triggers and the Neighbor's world.
Yuma looked beyond Kinuta to glance at Rindo, who was relaxing against the wall next to the door to the research lab they were in.
"Please focus, Kinuta-san." Rindo said, smiling reassuring at Yuma over Kinuta's shoulder.
"I am focusing. I came in extra early to do this for you, so don't rush me." Kinuta grumbled.
That was something Yuma was grateful for. Kinuta coming in early to help them meant there were very few people around so it was easy for Yuma to sneak around for food and to get to Kinuta without people seeing the damage done to his body. If his body continued to break, Yuma doubted he could hide it from the rest of Border unless he stayed in the barracks, but that was a problem for later.
For now, he removed his hoodie, but left his t-shirt on. While he had let his friends see the cracks on his hand and neck, Yuma had kept the rest of his torso covered to hide the full extent of the damage done to him. So far, the damage was contained to the left side of his body going from the tip of his fingers all the way up to his neck. There were cracks from his neck that were spreading down to his torso, but those couldn't be seen through his t-shirt.
"When did your body start breaking?" Kinuta asked.
"Like the first time it happened after I got this body or just these cracks in general?" Yuma asked, wiggling his fingers of his broken hand.
Kinuta scowled at Yuma, already feeling annoyance with the young Neighbor. "Do you damage your body often?"
Yuma shrugged. "Not usually, but it's been happening a lot this week."
"And is that what all this damage is from?"
Yuma shook his head. "My body got damaged when the Mimic threw me out of Border's windows and into a building and then Dad's attack slammed me through Tamakoma's walls. Both times, my body managed to heal."
Rindo raised a brow at that. He hadn't heard anything about Yuma's body taking damage when Yugo attacked Tamakoma, but considering Yuma's penchant for keeping quiet about things, that wasn't surprising. He probably thought some damage to his body that would just heal immediately wasn't important to mention. Then again, any damage done to his Trion body didn't seem worth mentioning to Yuma, even the damage that refused to heal.
Kinuta's scowl deepened. For such an experienced fighter, he actually expected more sense and caution from Yuma. "This may be a Trion body, Kuga, but that doesn't mean you should be so reckless with it."
"It's not like I feel any true pain." Yuma replied. "My body can heal so it's better I took the damage than Shiori-chan. She would have been out of commission for much longer if I let her take the full force of hitting the wall."
Actually, she probably would have died if he didn't take the hit for her, but that really didn't need said out loud.
"Forgetting to consider your own well-being is what will get you killed one day."
Yuma quirked a brow, an annoyed look overtaking his face. Despite what everyone was coming to think this week, Yuma was not selfless like Osamu was. The only reason he was bothering to concern himself with the safety of the city was because it was part of his duty as a Border agent. If he wasn't an agent, he wouldn't care about the city. Osamu was the altruistic one. Yuma only bothered to get involved with Border and the safety of the city because Osamu asked him for help. From there, the growing friendships he had in Border made him want to protect his friends and if he knew he could handle the attack with minimal damage, he would take it. He wasn't just throwing himself recklessly into situations without thinking it through.
"So, when did your body start cracking like this?" Kinuta asked, motioning towards Yuma's body when Yuma made no effort to reply to him. "When did the healing stop?"
"The night after Dad attacked Tamakoma. It was a few hours after the attack." Yuma replied. "It started on my hand, but has been spreading up my body since that night."
"And you thought it would be a good idea to hide it?" Kinuta scoffed.
"I thought it was related to the Mimics. Jin-san already saw my death coming this week and we thought it was because of the Mimics. If my body is breaking like this because of the Mimics, it would be best to destroy the Mimics as fast as possible."
Michael looked up from the computer he was at to give Yuma a frown. "There is no guarantee that this is because of the Mimics, and even if it is, there is also no guarantee that destroying the Mimics will fix this." Since they didn't want Yuma's situation getting out to everyone, Michael agreed to help Kinuta looking into it as he was the engineer of Tamakoma and already knew. It was better than letting the engineers under Kinuta in on the secret of Yuma's body. Non-combat employees of Border would have a harder time helping Yuma as it would be hard to keep his history as a Neighbor secret. The technicalities of his situation were complex and hard to believe that it happened in this world. If people thought too much into it, they might come close to the secret that Yuma was holding. It wasn't out of the realm of possibilities that what happened to Yuma could have happened in this world, but it was still best to keep it quiet as much as possible.
Yuma shrugged. The cracks were concerning, but considering Jin already told him he was going to die soon, he didn't let the cracks worry him too much.
"Well, have you felt anything off? Any pain? Weakness?" Michael asked.
Looking down at his hand, Yuma opened and closed his hand a few times, watching as the cracks squeezed and pulled as he did. "Not really. There is some tension I feel in them when pressure is applied, but that is it."
"With the damage you're showing, it's lucky you feel relatively fine." Rindo said surprised. He understood it was a Trion body, but even Trion bodies could be susceptible to pain and weakness. Aftokrator proved that when they programmed the Rabits to have the ability to override the Trion body's systems that turned the pain sensors off. There were plenty of systems in place to make things easier on the user when they were in their Trion bodies, but that didn't make them full proof.
"There's no telling if that will last however." Kinuta grunted. "I'm sure you're very aware of this, Kuga, but when Trion bodies sustain damage, it takes time and Trion for them to heal. I've never seen a Trion body as unique as yours, but I imagine the same rules apply. You need Trion available to you to allow your regenerative abilities to work."
"I do have Trion. I was using my seals last night to help Jin-san." Yuma replied.
"Do your seals require a lot of Trion?" Michael asked. "Remove your shirt too, Yuma."
"Depends on which one I'm using. Anchor requires a lot of Trion, but Shield requires less." Yuma explained as he pulled his t-shirt over his head.
Michael nodded as he pulled out his equipment and got it set up on the table that was next to the examination bed that Yuma was sitting on, not even flinching when he saw the cracks were spreading down from Yuma's neck to his chest. It hadn't spread that far down his torso yet, but it was concerning to see just how much his body had cracked in just two days.
Michael held his hand out towards Yuma, waiting for the young agent to give out his permission. Once Yuma lifted his hand, Michael got to work on hooking up wires to his ring and electrodes to his chest and arms while Yuma watched curiously.
"What are these for?"
"It's similar to an electrocardiogram." Michael paused and looked at Yuma with a frown. While they were both Neighbors, Michael had been in this world long enough to study up on the technology that this world offered. He knew that Yuma still struggled to understand all the different technology here and how it worked. It was hard for him to understand how this world didn't rely on Trion for everything. "Do you know what that is?"
Yuma shook his head.
"Electrocardiogram is a way that we can evaluate the heart using electrodes. This is similar to that, but we are going to be measuring your Trion levels to try to see what is happening with it." Michael explained as he pulled Yuma's hand down to keep him from messing with the electrodes. "It's easy enough to measure your Trion levels, but we want to see what is happening to them over the next few hours."
That got Yuma wrinkling his nose in displeasure. "Is this going to take all day?"
"It will take as long as it needs to until we get an idea of what is happening to you." Kinuta replied. "Considering it's your life on the line, there shouldn't be any complaining."
Yuma raised his hands in surrender to that.
*Mimics*
"We have a problem." Jin ambushed Shinoda in the hall while he was heading to the office.
It felt like it was becoming too much of a common occurrence for agents to hound him the moment he made it to HQ in the morning. It would be nice to be able to get to his office to sit down and enjoy his morning coffee as he worked himself into work mode before the headaches of the day began. "We seem to be having a lot of those lately. What is it this time?"
"We need to go to the storage vault."
Nothing good could come from Jin asking to have a conversation in a certain place.
Turning back down the hallway he just walked through, Shinoda led the way towards the elevators.
"Did anything happen last night?" Shinoda asked.
"Seemed pretty peaceful on our end. We all managed to sleep through the night, besides Yuma, who can't sleep." Jin replied, glancing out the windows they were walking pass. With it being day time now, it looked so peaceful out there currently. It was all just an illusion though. Mogami and Kuga were both out there and could attack at any moment. That was the reason he wanted to get up early. He needed to get stuff done and be ready for an attack at any moment, but at the same time, he wanted to sleep more so he could be able to stay up late if he was needed at night. He honestly needed to be available 24/7 right now, but that just wasn't feasible. "If anything else happened last night after the attack in the city, I don't know about it."
Shinoda nodded. "And you? How are you after you got attacked by the Mimics?"
The question brought the phantom touch of the Mimic's grip on his bicep to his mind. Jin held back the urge to rub the feeling away from his arm. He didn't think too much on the Mimics attacking him in the moment yesterday. At the time, the only thought in his mind was keeping Yuma out of the line of fire. He didn't want to risk anyone else from Yuma's past appearing, but there was also the worry of any attacks hitting Yuma. With his body already breaking, he didn't want to risk seeing what any attacks would do to Yuma.
Jin had put all his thoughts on Yuma that he had forgotten about himself. No, that wasn't right. It's not that he had forgotten about himself in everything that had been going on, but there was just too much going on between Kuga Yugo, Yuma's situation which kept Jin from wanting him using his Black Trigger, and the Mimics. It was a difficult situation they had been in and Jin's thoughts never once went to that he needed to keep Mogami from appearing.
It was a lapse of judgement on his part in a chaotic fight.
"I haven't given Mogami-san much thought since we parted ways."
Shinoda eyed Jin out of the corner of his eyes, but never broke his stride. "I see. I can't say the same." He said, surprising Jin. "Mogami-san wasn't just a mentor to you. He was a friend of mine. Yugo-san as well. Having Mimics running around with their faces and attacking the organization they helped create feels disrespectful towards their memory."
"I felt anger when I saw Mogami-san standing there." Jin admitted, shoving his hands into his jacket's pockets to hide the fact that he was clenching them shut tight enough for the knuckles to turn white. If Shinoda could say that, then Jin could talk about what he felt in the moment of Mogami's appearance. "When he first died, it took months to be able to recover from what happened, but eventually I was able to smile again. It definitely helped that Border began to grow a few months after his death and we got all these new allies and friends. I was able to move on with my life, but seeing him again, like this, it hurts because I know it's not real. I can't let myself get attached, can't let myself smile when I see him, because that will only make it harder when he dies again."
And he needed to die.
Mogami could not be allowed to stay here.
That was something that Jin could not let himself forget.
"You want to distance yourself to avoid going through the grief again." Shinoda nodded. "I can understand that too. Yuma-kun took a different approach."
"I don't blame Yuma for struggling with seeing his father again." Jin replied, looking over at Shinoda, feeling guilt build up inside of him with what he was about to say. "He didn't say it last night because it wasn't important, but Yuma didn't come to Japan with the intention of joining Border. He wanted to see if Border had a way to bring his father back through the Black Trigger which he poured everything into."
Shinoda would give Yuma this, he certainly had a lot of creative ideas. While most of the ideas he saw Yuma pull off worked out in his favor, some of the things he thought of just weren't that feasible. The thought of being able to revive anyone through a Black Trigger they created was just a ridiculous idea, but he could also see where Yuma was coming from. "Mogami-san was gravely wounded and dying so he created Fujin so his life wouldn't go to waste. He left Border with a powerful weapon, but because he was injured, even if there was a way to revive him, he wouldn't survive because of his injuries."
"On the other hand, Yuma's dad wasn't hurt when he created his. He gave his life up to save his son, and because of that, Yuma feels immense guilt and wanted to have his father back, even if it would kill him to do it." Jin took over.
"How bad are Yuma-kun's injuries? I can't imagine Yugo-san would trap his son in a Trion body unless they were really bad or that Yuma would never try to find a way to get his original body back if it was possible." Shinoda asked as he pushed the button to call for the elevator.
Jin shook his head. "I don't know. Yuma never told me the type of injuries that he received. I do know he was in a horrible state. It was probably bad enough that Yuma can't even properly recall what type of injuries he sustained. Those injuries, though, probably weren't that important to him after he realized what his father did. Watching his father give his life for him was probably more painful than the injuries that got locked away in a Black Trigger forever."
Shinoda stepped into the elevator, resting a hand on the railing as he looked out the glass wall to take in the Restricted Zone. A giant base in the center of part of the city that Border cordoned off for their battles with the Neighbors. Mogami and Yugo would have never believed this was what would come of Border one day. The organization they built out of their love for the Neighbor's world and wanted to connect with it was now a military organization with the goals of expedition missions to gather intel on their technology and to fight any stray Neighbors who came into this world.
Before that first large-scale invasion, Border was a secret organization with elite agents. Even before that first invasion, they knew Trion soldiers were coming here and kidnapping people, but back then, they had no good way of locating the Neighbors and stopping those attacks. When the organization was forced to go public, it felt like Border blew up into a huge organization overnight. The fear and anger at the Neighbors from that first attack didn't give them time to grow slowly.
It was lucky for them Kinuta arrived to join Border and he managed to get a good understanding of the Neighbor's technology. He was a rough old man who had no patience, but there was no denying that he was smart and good at what he did. Michael and Kinuta working together back then were an impressive team that got Border's Gate guidance system up and running within a few months after the first attack.
The amount of allies that they gained was nice, especially after the tremendous loss they all felt when so many of their friends were killed in Aristera. Being one of the longest members of Border left, it put Shinoda in a Commander's position that he never wanted, but someone had to stand up and take charge of the new agents arriving. Taking on the role of Border's defense commander was one of the hardest things he ever had to do as he was only used to ever being an agent back when Border was smaller. Before Border's growth, the organization was small enough that they only needed Kido as the Commander-in-Chief. When Shinoda took his position in the new Border, he finally realized why Mogami agreed with Yugo on giving the role of Commander-in-Chief to Kido when Yugo left Border.
Mogami clearly had the right idea, but sadly, Shinoda didn't have the option of declining. Border needed its experienced members to step up to the plate in a time of a crisis.
It was for that reason, unless there was no other option, Shinoda took a step back from active combat. The agents needed him to lead them in large invasions so he couldn't just actively go charging into fights all the time. While he used to enjoy fighting, the attack in Aristera and then the large-scale invasion here truly opened his eyes to how dangerous all of this was. It was for those reasons that the safety of his agents and the city was above everything else.
Shinoda never developed a hatred for Neighbors like the Kido faction did, but depending on the circumstances, he would focus on the city before he did any Neighbors. When Yuma came to Japan, there was no danger to the city so he allowed all his focus to go to defending the young Neighbor who turned out to be the son of an old friend, and he felt no regret for his actions back then.
Especially now that he had been let onto the truth of Yuma's Black Trigger. He always knew that Yugo was an amazingly powerful Trigger user, but he just kept outdoing Shinoda's expectations.
Jin leaned on the wall of the elevator, following Shinoda's gaze to look out the window. "Yuma jumped right into fighting a war for three years so he never properly grieved his father's death or find the strength to move on from it. Instead, he held onto hope of somehow bringing him back. So, I'm not too surprised he's struggling this much with a Mimic of his dad being here. Honestly, if I have to spend any time near Mogami-san's Mimic, I might be in the same boat as Yuma."
"Any of us could be." Shinoda agreed, a sad smile overtaking him. "Don't forget Rindo and I were close to both of them."
Jin turned his eyes to Shinoda, staring at him for a moment before letting his eyes slide shut as he dropped his head to the elevator wall behind him. Right. That was right. He shouldn't overlook the fact that Rindo and Shinoda could both be taking all of this hard right now, but they had to stand tall as the leaders and not show how everything was affecting them.
*Mimics*
Hyuse glared at Chika and Osamu as they entered the barracks.
"Good morning to you too, Hyuse." Osamu said, confused as to what he did to earn such a heated glare first thing in the morning.
"Good morning, Hyuse-kun," Chika greeted cheerfully, unbothered by Hyuse's intense look. It was his default expression when he was first captured by Border so it wasn't anything new to her. She did like the more relaxed state he had adopted with Tamakoma-2 in the last couple of weeks, but since everyone seemed on edge this week, she wouldn't look into it too much.
"Did you get to sleep in this morning?" Hyuse demanded.
Osamu's brows rose as his confusion only intensified. "I guess? I got up at eight."
That seemed to only irritate Hyuse even more.
"Why do you ask?" Chika asked as she sat on Yuma's empty bed.
"That idiot Jin woke me up at six thirty because he wanted Yuma to get an early start to his day of being a lab rat to Kinuta." Hyuse explained, annoyance coating every inch of his face and voice. "And funnily enough, Yuma doesn't even sleep because he lives in a Trion body so why did I have to get up?"
Osamu truly did not need to know about the ridiculous things his teammates did when he was not around. If he had to listen to all those stories, he was just going to get a headache. At least Hyuse's complaining told him why Yuma wasn't in here.
"Yuma-kun doesn't sleep?" Chika asked surprised.
"He's in a Trion body twenty-four/seven so he doesn't have the capability of sleeping." Osamu explained, ignoring Hyuse's question that he didn't have an answer to. He wasn't here this morning to know what really happened so he had no opinion on any of it.
Chika nodded, eyes flickering from Osamu to Hyuse then to the empty spot beside her that would normally be occupied by Yuma. She knew that he was just off getting checked over, but after hearing his story last night, she had a lot of trouble sleeping when she went home. If she was being honest, she spent half an hour just standing outside of her parents' bedroom door, not daring to go in and interrupt their sleep. She just silently stood there, pain and guilt gnawing at her.
When she first met Yuma, she told him that she felt it was her fault her brother and friend were taken by Neighbors. They had been near her and had been lost because of it. Yuma had related to her by saying he would feel guilty if Osamu got in trouble for harboring him. That was his reasoning at the time, but after hearing his story and seeing that look in his eyes last night, Chika realized that underneath that cheerful grin of his, Yuma understood her feelings of guilt better than anyone else possibly could.
After learning the truth of his father's death, Chika could understand why he didn't mention it that day. They had only just met, and since then, Chika had realized that Yuma wasn't fond of speaking of his past. The couple of things she did hear from him about his past would cause a sad look to pass through his eyes.
Perhaps there was nothing Chika could do to help Yuma, the complications of his situation were too difficult for her to solve, but she could at least be a friend to him. Yuma would always be a friend to her, but she wouldn't lie and say she wasn't a bit scared. Jin had said that he saw Yuma's death this week, but he saw Osamu's death in the past and managed to get them on a path where Osamu would survive his injuries. So, surely, Jin would accomplish the impossible again.
She knew he would. She just had to believe in him.
Believe in all of them.
The fear she was feeling came from the fact that even if –no, when- they saved Yuma's life this week, it didn't change his situation at all. Yuma was gravely wounded and still slowly dying, even without whatever was damaging his Trion body. He had been living like this for years, taking the pain and fear of the situation silently.
He didn't have to be alone anymore, though. Tamakoma was aware of his situation now and wouldn't let him suffer in silence anymore. Even if she was worried for Yuma, she wouldn't run from the fear of losing him. She stood still when she lost her brother and friend, but not anymore. She would never stand back and do nothing again.
Was there anything she could do to help Yuma?
Probably not, but she could at least offer her support to him.
*Mimics*
"What was the problem?" Shinoda asked as he and Jin entered the storage vault.
Jin led the way to the pedestal that Fujin sat on, resting his hand on it. "When I came in here last night to return it, as I was leaving, I heard it breaking."
"Breaking?" Shinoda repeated, disbelief in his voice as he stepped up to the pedestal so he could pick up the sleek handle. He turned it over in his hand, and to his surprise, he found some small cracks on the end of it. While Triggers were powerful weapons, they weren't impossible to break. Even Black Triggers were susceptible to being destroyed, but it wasn't easy to do. Just being rough with the blade in battle wouldn't be enough to do any actual damage to it. "Do you know how it happened?"
Jin shook his head. "I just put it down and turned away when I heard the cracking happening."
"So, the damage wasn't here when you took it out yesterday?" Shinoda asked, frowning. Kako used it the other day, but she wasn't the type to damage Border's stuff.
"No, but I also wasn't looking for any damage to it when I grabbed it. I was in a hurry to get out of here, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't there." Jin replied.
Shinoda nodded and held the sword out to Jin. "Activate it."
The moment the hilt was in his hand, Jin was willing the blade to activate and calling out his wind blades. It wasn't too much of a surprise when of the eleven wind blades he was able to summon, two of them were looking like they were cracked themselves.
"The blade doesn't look damaged at least." Shinoda said, resting his hands on the pedestal as a sigh escaped him. "But if it's already cracked that little bit, it's possible the damage can spread easily. We should have Kinuta-san take a look at it before we let anyone use it again."
Jin deactivated Fujin. "He should be in the labs with Yuma right now."
*Mimics*
A tiled white ceiling was a lot more boring to look at for hours than star gazing. Yuma itched to move, but knew Kinuta wouldn't appreciate that so he settled for turning his head to look at Michael and Kinuta, who were reading whatever the computer was saying.
"Bored, Yuma?"
Yuma's eyes flickered to where Rindo had taken a seat next to the bed Yuma was lying on. "I've never been good at sitting still."
A response to his statement came in the form of a chuckle. "I've seen you sit on the roof for hours, Yuma."
"That's different." Yuma grumbled. "I choose to be up there thinking."
"Yes, thinking of your strategies to beat the other Aces so your team can win Rank wars, but perhaps it is time to think of your own well-being now."
Yuma stared at his boss for a moment before looking back at the boring ceiling. "Dad always told me to never get involved in things I couldn't handle alone. If I got in trouble, it was on me to get myself out of it. He started training me when I was around five years old. By the time I was eleven and entering the Calvaria war, I considered myself to be pretty strong. I was an overconfident child so when Dad ordered me out of battle because of a Black Trigger assassin, I wasn't scared of the idea of the assassin. I was just annoyed that I couldn't fight."
Despite already knowing the story, Rindo was listening intently to Yuma. This wasn't a cold retelling of what happened to him. This was Yuma actually speaking of what he had felt back then. Yuma rarely went into what he actually felt. It made sense. Rindo was sure that Yuma normally spoke of his past in a detached manner because it made it easier for him to talk about it.
"Dad told me to not leave the fortress, no matter what happened. Growing up, I brushed a lot of Dad's orders off and everything always turned out fine, so when I saw the Calvaria soldiers getting pushed back, I thought it was the perfect excuse to disobey orders and fight. Part of it was because I was on their side and we couldn't let Spinthir invade the nation. That was the reason I was there, but the bigger part of it was my inability to run from a fight."
It was hard not to listen to Yuma speak when they were in an enclosed space like this and Yuma chose not to whisper to Rindo. While he had heard the story last night, hearing it explained in a child's voice was making Kinuta actually feel sympathetic towards the Neighbor he had written off as nothing but trouble. Granted, Kinuta still saw him as a troublemaker; his story proved that. However, being a father to a young daughter, Kinuta understood the plight of Kuga Yugo. There was nothing he wouldn't do to keep his daughter safe.
"When I laid there dying and Dad appeared in front of me, I didn't understand. Why did Dad appear in front me with the intention of giving up his life for mine. I could never figure it out." Yuma murmured softly.
"You fool..." Yugo approached his injured son to kneel down in front of him. "Why were you defeated?" He smiled at his son, even though he was unsure if Yuma was even aware enough to take notice his smile. "Hang on a second. I'll save you soon."
"What was that smile for?" Yuma asked.
"Because you're his son." Rindo replied, making Yuma glance at him as he listened intently. "There is no reason to overcomplicate this, Yuma. Kuga-san was your father and any father would do anything to keep his child safe. I know he raised you to be able to stand on your own, but a parent's duty is never over. He would want to protect you until the end."
Yuma laid an arm over his face to hide his eyes, clenching his hand shut tightly. The cracks in his hands protested at the movement, but Yuma barely noticed as he gritted his teeth. No, he wasn't going to let Rindo's words get to him. "I was there for Calvaria's sake. I stayed after Dad's death to fulfill the promise he made to Raymond, but I never put anyone's safety above mine again. If it didn't benefit me in any way, I stayed out of it." Yuma shifted his arm up to his forehead so he could crack open his eyes so he could stare at his broken hand. "That was my decision and I followed it rigorously for four years. No one was more important than my life. But, then I came here and met Osamu. At every turn, he was getting in my business and wanted to help me, even though he was weak. It confused me so much how someone could so selflessly throw himself into danger and almost die constantly. I have never once helped someone just because it was the right thing to do."
That was surprising. It wasn't at all like Yugo, who did fight for what he believed in, but, then again, Yuma was also his son. Yugo likely raised his son to think of his self-preservation before anything else. It would have been Yugo's goal to just keep his son alive.
"Watching Osamu, I seemed to get dragged into his flow of how to do things, and it was fun. After Dad died, I forgot how to enjoy life and saw no purpose to it. Osamu and Chika taught me how to be happy again. They showed me a world I had long forgotten existed. Protecting them, this world of fun and happiness became my top priority because I can't lose it again, because if I do, I don't think I'll be able to find it again."
Rindo smiled sadly. "It's hard, isn't it? When we went to Aristera to help our allies, I lost so many of my dear friends. Before that battle, Border had never lost one of its own, except Kuga-san, but he left the organization voluntarily to explore the Neighbor's world. We knew the dangers of what we were doing, but didn't truly understand until that day."
Buildings collapsing, people screaming in fear as they fled, his friends slain on the ground...all the moments flashed before Rindo's eyes. Besides fighting Trion Soldiers they were able to find in this world, the only experience any of them had with fighting back then was their training sessions. That day in Aristera taught them the true horrors of war and the harshness of the Neighborhood.
"It's not an easy place to survive, so when Kinuta-san came up with a bail out system, we latched onto it because none of us wanted to go through the pain of losing our friends again." Resting his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward, Rindo caught Yuma's eye. "That includes you. You're not just Kuga-san's son that we swore to protect. You're a friend and Border never turns its back on its friends. Just as we trust you to help us, you need to trust us to help you."
Yuma shifted his arm back down to cover his eyes again. He couldn't bear to look Rindo in the eye right now. "Only if you promise no one will die."
"That's not a promise I can make. We added as much protection to the agents as we could, but there will always be a risk of danger."
Yuma shook his head. "No, that's a risk I know too well. That's not what I'm asking. I don't want anyone to put my life above theirs in the next few days. I already have one foot in the grave. If it's between me and someone else, choose the person with the more likely chance of surviving the week. There's no reason for anyone else to die."
Rindo stared at his young agent sadly, the words never coming to him. Saving someone with their whole life ahead of them would be the most logical choice, but logic wasn't something that always won out in the end.
Emotions were a pretty strong determinate in the heat of the moment.
There wasn't time for any type of response to come from Rindo as the door to the lab sliding open had Rindo jumping to his feet so he could shift his body in front of Yuma. To his relief, it was just Jin and Shinoda coming in.
"We are not having a party in here." Kinuta grunted in annoyance.
"Sorry, sorry," Jin replied, far too cheerful for Kinuta's liking. "Since you're doing tests on Yuma's Black Trigger, I thought it would be a good time to ask you to take a look at Fujin."
"Why?" Kinuta asked suspiciously.
Jin placed Fujin gently down on the desk with the cracks facing upwards. Kinuta and Michael stared down at the Black Trigger in disbelief.
"How the hell did that happen?" Kinuta demanded.
The angry screaming had Yuma pushing himself into a sitting position to watch curiously, brushing the annoying wires out of the way.
"It began to break last night when I was putting it back."
Yuma blinked, staring at Fujin. He wasn't close enough to the desk to see the damage done to sword, but it's not like he needed to see it. It was strange no matter how bad the damage was. "It's not hard to destroy a normal Trigger, but Black Triggers are extremely difficult to even crack. It would probably require the power of another Black Trigger to do any damage."
Jin looked at Yuma, intrigued shining in his eyes. "What about the power of a false Black Trigger?"
"You mean the Mimics?" Shinoda asked.
"They're the only ones Fujin has been used against recently." Jin pointed out.
"And Mogami was using wind blades against us." Yuma's brows furrowed in confusion as he looked towards the boring ceiling in thought. "Mimics using the Black Trigger abilities of the Black Trigger they made before death. Nothing about this makes any sense."
"They're using the Black Trigger abilities, but they don't actually hold the Triggers, so how strong can they actually be?" Kinuta asked.
"The strengths of those abilities is nothing to scoff at. The seals Kuga-san was throwing at me felt just as strong as the ones Yuma flung at me." Jin replied, glancing at Yuma for confirmation.
"I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibilities." Yuma agreed while Kinuta glanced back at the computer than at the Fujin blade.
Kinuta rubbed his chin as he thought. "Kuga, you said your body is made from a Black Trigger, correct?"
Yuma nodded. "Yup."
"Black Triggers amplify the user's Trion," Kinuta looked at the tablet he had resting on the desk which held Yuma's file. "But when you got tested when you joined, your levels, while impressive, weren't Black Trigger levels."
"Ah, my levels match that of my normal body. I don't match Black Trigger levels unless I activate it and use my combat body. When it's not activated, the Trion is being poured into the body's systems to keep it functioning as well as powering the special features, like my regenerative ability." Yuma tilted his head in thought. "My body lacks the same durability as normal Trion bodies though. I got hit by a car when I came here and that was enough to break my body."
Michael looked up from the computer to join the others in looking at Yuma in disbelief.
"You're not careful with that body at all." Kinuta scoffed. "Just because you don't feel the pain doesn't mean you shouldn't be paying attention."
Yuma pouted. "I didn't know about cars!"
"I thought Osamu explained everything about this world to you." Jin said.
"He helped a lot, but the first car that hit me was before I met him." Yuma explained.
Jin raised a brow. "First?" He asked shocked. Holy Mother of...this child needed to attend a class about safety or something.
Kinuta shook his head, ignoring everything Yuma said. That kid's lack of understanding of how to survive in this world was not important to him. It wasn't what Tamakoma had asked him to look into. "The Trion powering your body is supplied by the Black Trigger so it makes sense that you wouldn't have access to it. That Trion is working in overdrive to sustain that body for you. Normally for someone to recover Trion, they would deactivate their Trigger and rest. Eat and sleep, but it seems you recover Trion just by not fighting. Despite that, your body requires a lot of Trion to sustain itself and its special abilities it has, but that Trion is also spread thin throughout your body, which is why your durability is so low that it can be damaged by non-Trion attacks."
Michael turned the monitor around to show the rest of the room the numbers on the screen from measuring Yuma's Trion. "We never got the chance to examine your Black Trigger before this so we have nothing to compare it to, but the Trion levels in the Black Trigger and what it should be sending to your body seem unnaturally low for being a Black Trigger." He tapped on the screen at the numbers that were in relation to Yuma's Black Trigger. "In fact, the number has dropped in the last couple of hours that you have been in here."
"It's getting weaker?" Shinoda asked surprised, looking from the screen to Fujin. Fujin was starting to break and now Yuma's Black Trigger was weakening. They had been unsure if Yuma's body taking damage was because of the Mimics, but if both Black Triggers were getting damaged, the only relation between them were the Mimics.
"I would have considered the possibility that it had to relate to his body inside the ring, but now that I'm seeing Fujin, it's looking more like it's an issue caused by the Mimics." Kinuta said as he worked on hooking Fujin up to the computer to take some results. They at least had information about Fujin in the system so studying the Trion levels of Fujin in its current state would tell him something.
Rindo sat back down in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. "If that's the case, will it be enough to kill the Mimics to fix the Black Triggers?"
"Considering I don't know how the Mimics are weakening our Black Triggers, I can't answer that." Kinuta tapped the top of the monitor. "Fujin's level is still high, but it less than its normal levels. If we consider the fact that this is caused by the Mimics, it makes sense that it is related to Mogami appearing last night."
"Which means Yuma-kun's Trion levels are getting so low because Yugo-san has been in the city for days now and has been actively using the Black Trigger a lot." Shinoda concluded.
"It's a working hypothesis, but I need to look more into this. For the time being however, neither this," Kinuta motioned to Fujin on the desk then pointed at Yuma. "Or your Black Trigger should be used. We don't know how they are being affected, but it's possible that the more they are used, the more it will speed up the process of them breaking."
Jin eyed Mogami's memento, fists clenching and unclenching at his side. Fujin was the last thing that Mogami had left behind. Besides his sunglasses, Fujin was the only thing he had of Mogami which was why he fought so hard to become its wielder a few years ago. He held onto the memory of his mentor for four years. He never truly gave up Mogami's memory. Instead, he was honoring who his mentor was by turning Fujin in to protect a Neighbor and end the fighting. A peaceful resolution that Mogami would have been proud of. Since no one became the owner of Fujin afterward, Jin was still able to use it when the situation was dire enough.
Even after all this time, for the organization he loved so much, Mogami was still helping Border so much. That help kept his mentor alive, but now there was the risk of them losing Mogami forever. Losing his mentor's memento was not something that Jin would ever be able to accept. Fujin was left behind by his real mentor. He would not stand by while a fake version of his mentor destroyed his real mentor's memento.
Yuma wrinkled his nose. First, he lost his Border Trigger and now he couldn't use his Black Trigger? That practically made him defenseless. He could still use his seals even without activating his Black Trigger, but he had the feeling Kinuta meant to not use his Black Trigger for anything. He knew he had said he would step out of the field for a while since he couldn't be near his dad, but that didn't mean he didn't want access to his weapon in case something did happen.
