Chapter 48
It always made him feel uneasy when Usagi was out of his sight.
Shuu reminded himself, again, for the millionth time, that Usagi was out with the other Senshi, and she was perfectly safe. She would be perfectly fine. He'd see her again at dinner…in 20 minutes. He rubbed his hands nervously on his pants.
It would be the first time that she'd tried his cooking – at his restaurant. Well. His branch of his family's restaurant, anyways.
What if she hated it?
He'd put way too much effort in this one meal. Shuu shook himself. He could learn to make her favorite dishes. If she didn't like dinner tonight, it wasn't a big deal he reminded himself.
Even if it felt like it was.
He liked her.
Probably too much.
He wasn't an idiot. He'd seen the other guy. Well…some of him anyways. Tall, cool, and reserved, whoever that guy was, Usagi had been nuts about him.
And despite the fact that his odds of having any deeper connection with the first girl who'd ever seemed perfect for him had been derailed by a complete stranger, Shuu's heart was broken for Usagi. If he could revive that guy and give him back to her, he'd do it, his own interest aside. She deserved to be happy.
But he couldn't.
He felt crushed.
There wasn't really anything he could do to bring her old life back. To bring the Senshis' lives back. The best the Troopers could do was help them build new ones here.
But that couldn't start until they got rid of the threat.
Shuu felt his stomach flip again as his muscles tightened at the awful feeling of an unseen menace. He hadn't been this worked up since…He tried not to think about it. What was happening to him? It was Shin's job to fret, not his.
Shuu took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm. This wasn't like him, he knew, but Usagi riled his protective instincts and drove them into the extreme. She'd been that way in the Underworld, but since the Senshi had come out of their own Universe, his instincts had been on red alert. He'd hated knowing that they'd been attacked, devastated, and alone. It burned inside of him. He was determined not to let anything else happen to them now.
And maybe, just a little, he was enjoying this sense of purpose. This was different than just battling to save the world. Having something dear to him come directly under threat fired him up in ways he hadn't felt in a long time. He was more than ready for whatever this challenge was. He was eager. He wanted to obliterate this shadow that'd been hanging over the Senshi.
He frowned as he thought about what had happened to them for the millionth time. He wasn't super smart like Touma or super intuitive like Seiji or Shin, so he hadn't really understood much about it other than the enemy using the Troopers as a diversion to just wreck an entire Universe.
Which still blew his mind every time he thought about it. That and made him really, really angry.
Sure, he'd met lots of things that had tried to take over the world in one form or another, but based on what he'd gathered from all their discussions, this enemy hadn't merely taken over – it had obliterated everything, leaving the Senshi stranded in a wasteland.
The idea of it made him feel ill.
Worse still, Touma had gravely informed the Troopers that the Guardian Senshi starseeds – including the Silver Crystal – were still connected to their Universe. To something this thing had consumed.
Usagi's crystal. Connected to the heart of some kind of monster.
It was enough to keep him up at night.
Tenku hadn't wanted to bring it up in front of the Senshi, but he and Ryo were concerned that in some misguided attempt to protect the Troopers' Universe, they might try to go back to their own. The idea was alarming, but Touma seemed confident that wouldn't happen. Mainly because the Senshi would never drag Usagi with them, and Usagi wouldn't let the Senshi go without her.
Essentially, Usagi's safety was the primary thing preventing the Senshi from trying to cut them all off – to protect everyone.
Shuu didn't care. He'd leverage the hell out of that to keep them here with the Troopers.
But all of this had him feeling extremely protective of Usagi and the Senshi. Touma's caution that it was a matter of when this thing showed up for the Senshi and not if, and Shuu knew he wasn't the only one on edge.
And if he was honest with himself, part of him was looking forward to exacting some vengeance. He was hungry to let into whatever it was that had come after them – come after the Senshi. And eager to eliminate it.
The Senshi had been through enough.
He'd spent so much time feeling helpless in the Underworld, so much time letting the Senshi take the heat of battle when he'd had no choice, and he was eager now to return the favor in spades.
If anyone so much as looked at them funny, shit was going down.
He looked at the clock again, groaning when he realized that only five minutes had passed.
Man, he needed to get his head on straight. If he didn't get his instincts under control, he was going to have bigger problems down the road, he could already tell.
Still. Something in his gut was telling him that things were off again. And considering what had happened the last time he'd had that feeling, letting Usagi out of his sight was hard. Knowing that any of the Senshi were unaccompanied at any time was hard.
Because on the surface, everything was fine. And the last time everything had been…abnormally normal, it had turned out that nothing was fine at all. He wasn't going to ignore his gut this time. He'd listen to his instincts.
And they were telling him not to let Usagi out of his sight.
He was going to have to figure out a way to manage his instincts without smothering her like a lunatic.
He could do it.
Probably.
Shuu stared out the window at the passersby without seeing them.
He was still standing there when the door to the restaurant opened, and he heard her cheerful greeting. He tried to ignore the flood of warmth that washed through him, but failed.
He needed to wrap her up in a hug and breath her in, but he didn't.
Usagi Tuskino had him. Even though she didn't want him.
He probably wasn't ever going to have her back.
But he turned, giving her his warmest, brightest smile. Because that wasn't her fault. It was his. She needed someone to be there for her.
And Shuu would be that man until she didn't need him anymore.
