What's this, chapter seven? Why yes, it is! In which Shiro realizes that Keith has been doing the most unimpressive impression of a human the whole time, the cadets reconfirm that Keith is nuts, and everyone gets to eat some disgusting food. You know, bonding!

maroon

chapter seven

enigma

"Uh, guys? I'm not so sure we should be here."

"Oh c'mon Hunk, what's he gonna do, have the red lion bite our heads off?"

"I just don't see why you two had to drag me into this." Pidge piped up, looking between Lance and Hunk. She had been perfectly happy going through the prisoner data that Ulaz had given them, when Lance had all but stormed into the green lion's hangar and dragged her away.

Which was how she ended up on the other side of the ship, in the red lion's hangar. Which seemed to be where Keith was, if his lion standing at full attention, with its particle barrier up was any indication.

"Moral support, duh." Lance told her.

"Moral support for who?" Pidge asked, brows shooting up. "Keith?"

"Uh, yeah, why is that so hard to believe?" Lance asked, having the audacity to sound offended. "I'm allowed to care about mullet too sometimes, you know."

Heaving a long sigh, Pidge's gaze flickered over towards Hunk, who merely gave her a shrug of his shoulders. "Alright, so what are we supposed to be doing, exactly? I don't think the red lion's just going to let us in."

She didn't know what Keith's deal with the red lion was, just that they seemed to have a very close bond. She had asked Allura about that weapon Keith had used during their assault on Central Command, and had been told it was one of his lion's hidden powers, that he had managed to awaken.

Figures. What time he didn't spend on the training deck, he seemed to spend in his lion. Who knows, maybe Keith was just a huge cat person.

Lance had managed to awaken his lion's hidden power too, which she knew, because he would not shut up about it.

Ugh. At least Keith was modest.

Or more like he just didn't talk to them at all, most of the time. She hadn't known him very well back when they had first become paladins, and she still didn't know him very well. She knew both Allura and Coran better than she did her fellow arm of Voltron, and she'd be lying if she said that didn't bother her a little.

But maybe Keith was just like that.

"Maybe we could coax her?" Lance ventured. "Can't be healthy for mullet to stay cooped up in there all the time."

"Yeah, we kind of haven't seen him since we left the Thaldycon system." Hunk pointed out. "I mean... aren't you worried?"

Since Ulaz died, she sensed he really wanted to say. Keith tended to make himself scarce, but they usually still saw him for daily meals- which they hadn't, lately. Frowning, Pidge looked up towards the red lion, as if it would spill its paladin's secrets.

Doubtful.

It wasn't like she hadn't noticed what Keith had let slip out from his side of the bond. But she'd just thought it was from sensing the space time fold collapsing in on itself, with Ulaz inside. Granted, she knew very little about these psychic powers that Keith apparently had, but it didn't sound too far fetched as a theory.

And maybe she was a little worried. Keith was still one of them, even if he was a walking enigma.

"Look, I'm sure he's fine." Pidge told them. "If he wasn't, I'm pretty sure Shiro would be the one in here, not us. I say we give him his space."

"Aw, c'mon Pidge, aren't you the least bit-"

Lance didn't get to finish that sentence, which was probably for the best. She got a feeling he was going to end it with curious as opposed to worried.

Two things happened at once- the red lion's particle barrier went down, and the lion itself knelt down, allowing her paladin to leave her cockpit. It was the first time they had seen Keith in almost two days, and she couldn't tell if those were bags under his eyes, or just shadows.

They hardened when he saw them. Shadows, then.

"Keith!" Spreading out his arms, Hunk looked relieved to see him. "Oh man, buddy, good to see you!"

Keith merely frowned, saying nothing. Hunk's arms hung loosely in the air, clearly hoping for a hug, before he awkwardly dropped them, shifting on his feet. The gaze that Keith had locked on him gradually shifted, and now she was the one who found those intense purple eyes fixed on her.

Which- fine. Maybe his eyes actually were purple.

"When's the last time either of you trained?"

And that was not a question she had been expecting.

"Uh, I don't know- awhile?" Hunk ventured.

And that was the wrong answer.

Before either of them could say anything, Keith had grabbed Hunk by his collar, and had tucked her underneath his arm. Letting out a loud squeak, she thrashed, trying to get down, but he held her there with an iron grip, just tight enough so that she couldn't escape, but loose enough so that he didn't actually hurt her.

"Whoa, Keith, buddy, what the heck?" Lance sputtered. Her sentiments exactly!

"Training. Now." Keith's reply was curt, yet somehow brokered no arguments. "You too, Lance."

"Wha- Keith, c'mon, I have legs, you know!" Pidge finally got out, giving up on trying to worm free. Biting him was an option, but somehow she didn't think that would go over too well.

"If I put you down, you'd just run away." Keith remarked, dragging Hunk behind him like he weighed nothing.

He was right, but also- holy shit, how strong was this guy?

Lance looked like was torn between rescuing Hunk, and vaguely fearing for his life. Either way, it was enough to ensure that the only one of them that remained free didn't try to escape, and he ended up following them all the way to the training deck, where Keith promptly released the both of them.

"Uh, just for the record, none of us have our armor." Lance pointed out, watching Keith with caution, just in case he tried to pick him up. "We're not crazy enough to go up against the training bots without it."

"Unlike some people." Pidge muttered underneath her breath, which earned a sharp glower from Keith. What, had he heard that?

"You're not going to be fighting the training bots." Keith told them. "You're going to be fighting me."

Silence.

"...I'm not sure if that makes it better." Hunk ventured, daring to break it. "You're like on level fourteen, dude, I'm pretty sure you could kick all our butts."

"I won't attack." Keith told them. "Just defend. Try and hit me."

"Oh, so now you're just underestimating us, huh?" Lance asked, clearly more than a little ticked off. "So this is the thanks we get for being worried about you."

Keith merely frowned at that. "I'm not underestimating you."

Ouch. She knew he probably hadn't meant that as an insult, but it stung nonetheless. Lance sure as heck seemed to take it as one, flaring up at him.

"Oh yeah?" He asked, glowering. "I'll make you eat those words, Kogane."

"Looking forward to it." Keith said.

In the back of her mind, she got the feeling that there was no way this would end well for them. Lance had probably already forgotten, but Keith was the only one who had gotten a hit in on Ulaz. Shiro technically had, but he'd pulled his blow just before actually hitting him, so it both counted and didn't.

She had been just dragged around, and then thrown like a ragdoll- at Keith, nonetheless. Not her best performance.

Was that what this was about? She didn't see how unarmed combat would help them in the long run, but there had to be some kind of method behind Keith's madness. Maybe if they humored him, they could just get this over with quickly, and she could get back to looking through those prisoner files.

Taking off his jacket, Keith tied it around his waist. "There's mats in the storage closet. Hunk, give me a hand."

Sensing it was better to not protest, Hunk quickly obliged. Pidge frowned as they were dragged out- she didn't even know they had something like that on the training deck, which just showed how little time she spent in it, and how much time Keith did.

...maybe that was what this was about.

Maybe Keith thought they were all slacking off.

Which would not be an entirely unfair assumption. She barely used the training deck- she spent most of her free time cooped up in the green lion's hangar, where she had set up her lab, or in the archives, sorting through data that they had taken from Galra ships, hoping to find any trace of her family.

She wondered, briefly, what Keith's family was like. They had given birth to a literal psychic, so she couldn't help but be a little curious.

Satisfied with the setup of the mats, Keith nodded his head. Off came his boots, tossed haphazardly to one side of the mats. Shifting on his feet, he watched the three of them, his stance loose.

She was no martial arts expert, but she could sense a trap when she saw one. And that was definitely a trap.

"How do we know you're not going to fight back?" Lance asked, sounding suspicious.

"Guess you'll just have to take my word for it." Keith told him- before flashing him a faint grin, a challenge written clear in his eyes. "What are you- scared?"

Keith was playing Lance like a fiddle. She realized it. Hunk realized it.

Lance, tragically, did not.

She didn't consider herself a person of faith, not by a long shot, but in that instant, she found herself uttering a silent prayer for him. He was going to need it.

(They probably all would. Godspeed.)

For a brief moment, all Shiro could do was wonder what he'd walked in on.

It was mid-afternoon when he realized that he hadn't seen any of the other paladins for a few hours. Naturally, that caught his attention- even on a ship of this size, he usually didn't go that long without seeing any of them. Keith, maybe, but the others? He'd usually have seen at least Hunk or Lance by now, but there hadn't been hide nor hair of them.

So he did what anyone else in his situation would do- look for them. He checked the lounge first, in case they were there. Then their rooms, only to find them all empty- in a sense, as Pidge's room was even more cluttered than the last time he had been in there, and that had only been a week ago.

After that, he checked the kitchen, hoping to find Hunk, but turned up nothing. Checking the green lion's hangar turned up the same result- no Pidge, so in a last ditch attempt to find out where they had all gone, he decided to check the training deck.

Maybe he should have started looking for them a little earlier.

He did not know how they had all ended up in this situation, but he could tell one thing- they were all exhausted. All except for Keith, that was, who merely glanced up at him when he entered the room- and it was in that instant that he realized that he'd been the one responsible for dragging the other three here.

The fact that the other three were all collapsed in a circle around him was another big clue. Keith was crouched in the center, his weight on his toes, arms resting on his knees. Water pouches had been awkwardly placed next to each fallen paladin, but none of them had made a move for them, which told a story of its own.

It was the first time he'd actually seen him since the fight with the robeast. He had brushed them all off after the battle, and then had disappeared somewhere within the castle-ship. So to just stumble on him out in the open like this took him a bit by surprise.

His recent revelations definitely didn't help matters.

(Violet eyes, just like Krolia's.)

"Oh thank god, it's Shiro." It took him a second to register that it was Lance who spoke. "You have to save us. I think Keith's mullet has finally eaten his brain."

"Hair can't eat brains, Lance." Keith frowned.

"Keith, buddy," Hunk spoke up, "-we really need to talk to you about figures of speech."

"Keith," Shiro began, deciding to put everything else aside, and just focus on the issue at hand for the time being, "-you wanna tell me what the four of you have been doing for the past three hours?"

"Wha- it's been three hours?" Pidge blurted out. "Ugh, no wonder everything hurts."

"I said they could go once they landed a hit on me." Keith told him. "They haven't hit me yet."

Yep, he could sort of see the problem here. Putting aside the question as to whether Keith was one or not, he'd presumably been taught to fight by the Galra, which put him on an entirely different level than a bunch of cadets whose only experience with hand to hand combat involved a handful of self defense courses back at the Garrison.

He suspected that this was also a reaction on Keith's part to Ulaz's death- and he could sort of see the logic behind it. If Voltron had been stronger, then Ulaz wouldn't have needed to make that sacrifice. He'd just taken it very literally which- yeah, that seemed like a pretty Keith thing to do.

But he could also tell that the paladins were exhausted, and that Keith sort of maybe didn't understand that as well as he could. He could tell, because each of the paladins had at least three water pouches placed by them- or five, in Pidge's case, as if some part of Keith had supplied that she was small and thus needed more- as if throwing water at the problem was all he would need to solve it.

Arguing the point with Keith probably wouldn't get him anywhere, so maybe he should try tackling this from a different angle.

"Okay, how about this," Shiro began, "-if I get a hit in, you let everyone else go."

Which kind of made it sound like Keith had been keeping them prisoner, which technically...

...yeah. He wasn't sure that Keith realized that, though.

Keith frowned at that, brows drawing together. "This is their training."

"I'm a paladin too, Keith." Shiro reasoned. "You're going to leave me out?"

Frown deepening, Keith considered it for a moment- before he pushed himself to his feet, giving him a curt nod of his head. "Okay. But they have to train more."

He was right about that, at least. He knew that Pidge and Hunk had been slacking, so maybe it was time he increased the amount of team exercises they did. It would be good for Keith too, who didn't seem to have a firm grip on the whole teamwork thing.

"I've been meaning to increase our training regime anyways." Shiro told him.

That earned him groans from the three cadets, but at least they seemed energized enough at the thought of escaping from whatever hell training Keith had been putting them through to get up off their butts, and move to the sidelines. He noted, with faint amusement, that Pidge hoarded all five of the water pouches, and the faint pleased look Keith got when he noticed that, as if mentally noting that he had done well.

How he managed to not realize that Keith was an alien before this was beyond him. It seemed so obvious in hindsight. Sure, he hadn't known aliens were even real until Kerberos, but after that?

He should have known.

Shaking his head, he grinned at Keith, who merely just stared at him, perplexed. Stepping onto the mat, Shiro watched as Keith's perplexed expression transformed into a determined one. His stance didn't change much, but he could tell that he'd raised his guard.

He had seen Keith fight before, at the Garrison. The first time he had sparred with someone, he had accidentally dislocated their shoulder. After that, he took a lot more care with how he fought, usually never even laying a single hand on his opponents, usually just waiting until they wore themselves out, and then pinning them to the mat.

In other words, he'd recognized he was stronger than them, and had reacted accordingly.

Keith wouldn't make the first move, Shiro recognized- so he tested the boundaries with a simple thrust, one that he easily dodged. He wasn't just strong, but he was fast, light on his feet, and agile to boot- he might have spent a year fighting for his life in the gladiator arena, but he had no doubt that Keith was probably stronger than him.

If Keith was this strong, he couldn't help but wonder how strong the Galra that trained him were. Ulaz had been something else- he'd only managed to nearly get a blow in on him because he'd taken him by surprise. If he'd been there to kill them, they all would have been in trouble.

Which was something to keep in mind.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he couldn't help but notice the rapt way the cadets were paying attention to their fight. Though to be fair, Shiro wasn't sure he could really call it a fight- a game of close quarters, high stakes tag, maybe, but not a fight.

But he had one advantage that the cadets didn't- he'd seen Keith fight before. He watched him train.

That meant he could predict his moves.

It was a feint that got him, in the end. Shiro pulled his punch just before it connected with Keith's stomach, but it was enough for Keith to let out a long breath, stepping back and holding his hands up in defeat.

"Looks like you win."

"Looks like I do." Shiro told him, giving him a smile. "So I take it everyone's free to go?"

Nodding his head, Keith frowned. "Yeah, sure. But they have to train more."

"We heard you the first time, Keith!" Lance yelled, apparently having gotten a bit of his spunk back. He didn't even flinch at Keith's glower, instead returning it with one of his own.

"You just leave team training to me, Keith." Shiro told him, resting a hand on Keith's shoulder. "I'm the leader, that's my job. That said, I think everyone's trained enough today."

"...fine."

That nearly seemed to be the end of it, Keith stalking away from the mats, scooping up his boots as he did so. He was just about to tell everyone to leave, when Keith came back into his line of vision, and proceeded to drop, of all possible things, Galaxy Garrison ration bars into the laps of each of the cadets, before thrusting one at Shiro.

...guess he was right about Keith stashing rations. He just hadn't expected him to be stashing them on the training deck. Or that he would-

"What the heck, Keith, you brought these things with you to space!?" Lance blurted out, glaring down at the ration bar like it had personally offended him.

"That's the last of my stash." Keith told him. "If you don't want it, I'll take it back."

"You know what?" Hunk piped up. "As weird as this is going to sound, I've actually sort of been missing these. I- how many of these did you even bring with you, Keith?"

"Like I said, that's the last of my stash." Keith repeated. "If you don't want it-"

"Nope, I'll eat it." Hunk told him. "I'm hungry enough that I could probably eat cardboard right now."

"Which is what these things taste like." Pidge added.

"They taste fine to me." Keith muttered, unwrapping his own, taking a bite out of it without so much as blinking. He still remembered the first time he'd taken him down to the commissary, after realizing that he had been eating nothing but ration bars since enrolling at the Galaxy Garrison.

He also remembered the time he'd tried to bite into a lemon, and the time he'd eaten a jalapeno whole, seeds and all. How had he never realized Keith was an alien again?

(Nothing beat the time he'd eaten an entire apple core, though. By the time he realized what Keith was doing, it was too late to stop him. He could only look on in horror.)

"Yeah, but I think we all know by now that your taste buds are broken, and therefore, cannot be trusted." Lance said, begrudgingly biting into his own, making a show of nearly gagging after he swallowed it. "How did you even live off these things in the desert?"

"I had beans and jerky too." Keith merely replied. "And soup."

"Keith!" Hunk shot his head up, alarmed. "Is that all? What about vegetables?"

Squinting, Keith narrowed his eyes. "...sometimes they were in the soup?"

"Geez, Keith, how are you even alive?" Lance asked.

Tilting his head, Keith frowned, brows knitting together. He was pretty sure he was getting more confused as this conversation went on. Good a sign as any that it was time to cut in.

"Any chance I can borrow you, Keith?" Shiro asked.

Looking up at him, Keith blinked, before slowly nodding his head. "Yeah, sure."

Giving him an honest smile, Shiro gave Keith's shoulder another pat. Two days wasn't a lot of time, but the longer he put it off, the higher the chance became that something would go wrong because of it. When it came to subjects like this, it was best to open up about them as soon as possible.

"Great. But let's talk someplace else."

Someplace else turned out to be the red lion.

It had been his choice. He wanted somewhere they could talk in private, someplace that would put Keith at ease. The first place he could think of was the red lion.

"What did you want to talk about, Shiro?" Keith asked.

The question was so casual, that it nearly fooled him. But there was no mistaking Keith's wary stare, the way his back was pressed up against the wall. It reminded him of when he'd first been introduced to him, that skittish cadet who didn't seem to trust anyone.

A lifetime of war would do that to a person.

"Can I see your knife?"

Instantly, Keith was suspicious. He tried not to show it, but it was there, in the way his brow furrowed, in the tension of his shoulders. Biting his lip, he looked as if he wanted to turn him down, before he finally reached behind him, unsheathing his blade.

For a split second, some more primal part of Shiro thought he was about to attack him, before he buried it down. No. Keith wouldn't do that. Sure enough, Keith flipped the knife around, so that he held onto the blade, holding out the hilt towards him.

Nodding his head, Shiro took the knife from him, careful not to cut him as he did so. He'd had it thrust up against his neck twice, but he'd never held it before- it was heavier than he thought it would be. He could see his reflection on its surface- he didn't know if that was testament to how much care Keith put into it, or if that was just a natural feature of the metal that had been used to make it.

It was a well crafted blade.

"Ulaz told me once," Shiro began, "-that the Blade of Marmora was with me."

He could have sworn Keith stopped breathing.

"I don't think he was speaking figuratively."

Keith was coiled tension now, every muscle at the ready to give him either fight or flight. He didn't miss the way he ducked his right hand from view, nor the way it was still bandaged, even two days after he had woken up from the healing pod.

"Can I take these off?" Shiro asked, indicating the bandages around the hilt.

Keith said nothing, merely holding his gaze for the longest time- before slowly nodding his head. He knew he'd been caught, that he couldn't worm his way out of this.

Nodding his head, Shiro carefully unwrapped the bandages from around the hilt of Keith's knife. He'd admit, he'd been expecting it, but he still sucked in his breath a little at the sight of the glowing sigil etched into the hilt, the final piece of proof that his theory was true.

Keith was Blade of Marmora.

Keith was the unknown.

"...guess I should thank you for Haxus." Shiro noted.

Keith's gaze never left him, but it did drop. He seemed to have remembered how to breathe, luckily, his shoulders rising and falling as he did so, still tense as anything.

"...if you want me gone, I'll go."

Blinking at that, Shiro started. "Keith, no, I don't want you to leave."

Looking up at him, surprise filled those violet eyes of his. "But I'm-"

"Still the red paladin." Shiro finished.

"I've been lying to you." Keith insisted, searching his face for any trace of a lie. "About everything."

Taking a step forward, Keith jolted in response, but didn't back down. Whatever he had been expecting him to do, it wasn't to hand him back his knife- hilt wrapped again and all. He was slow in taking it, but once he did, he wasted no time in sheathing it again.

"Now's as good a time as any, if you want to stop." Shiro told him. "But I won't make you tell me anything."

Now that truly puzzled Keith. He had to wonder if it was just his quirk, or if spending two years on Earth had done it to him, but he was more expressive than any other Galra he'd met. Maybe it was just the human features.

And he was Galra. That was what he was going to finish that sentence with.

Which raised the question of why he looked so human. Maybe he was only part Galra? Maybe he could shapeshift. There was always the chance that Keith was human, but had been raised Galra, for one reason or another, and thus thought of himself as one. He'd question how a human had gotten so far out into space, but well... yeah.

Either way, he was clearly on the right side of this conflict.

Finally, after what seemed to be the longest time, Keith's shoulders slumped. "I've been spying on you. For the Blade of Marmora."

Okay, that he hadn't been expecting. In hindsight, it made sense. Not only did Voltron have the power to challenge Zarkon, it was also something he desperately wanted. It made sense that the Blade of Marmora would want to keep track of it.

"It's not the worst thing you could be doing." Shiro told him frankly.

Confusing Keith seemed to be the name of the game today. He almost felt a little bad about it, watching his thoughts spin around a mile a minute in his head. He was going to take a wild guess that he probably hadn't been trained for deep cover missions of this nature.

If anything, he'd been on Earth because the blue lion was there. He wasn't sure how he'd ended up at the Galaxy Garrison- maybe it had just been a way to keep a roof over his head, maybe he'd thought they'd known something. Taking off with it and becoming a paladin of Voltron probably hadn't been on his plans.

In short- it wasn't like Keith had planned to spy on them. He didn't know if it would make the difference to anyone else, but it did to him.

And again- spying on them for the Blade of Marmora? Not the worst thing he could do.

"I'm Galra."

"I'm going to be honest, that explains a ton about you." Shiro told him.

Whatever he had been expecting to say in reaction to that, it probably wasn't that. He watched as confusion turned to frustration. "So, what- you're fine with this? With me?"

"Pretty much." Shiro told him, nodding. "I can understand why you would be worried, but I promise you, Keith- I'm not angry, or disgusted, or afraid. If anything, I'm worried about you."

"Worried." Keith repeated, in disbelief. "About me."

"You knew Ulaz, didn't you?" Shiro asked.

Keith held his gaze for a long moment, before closing his eyes, letting out a long breath. "Yeah."

He didn't expect him to say anything more- and he'd be fine with that. Like he said, he wasn't going to press Keith for answers, even if he did have a million questions. He trusted Keith- even with the admission that he had been spying on them.

He hadn't even asked for that information, and he'd admitted it anyways.

"I'm sorry." Shiro told him. "I know losing him couldn't have been easy."

Keith ducked his head, for once, not looking at him. "...thanks."

"I just wanted to let you know that I'm here to support you, Keith." Shiro told him. "You will always have a place on this team."

Letting out a snort, Keith chanced a look back up to him. "I don't think that's your call."

The princess. He was talking about the princess.

"The red lion chose you." Shiro told him. "The princess saw that herself. If she has a problem with it," and she probably would, he wasn't blind to that, "-then she'll just have to deal with it."

"Yeah, by shooting me out an airlock."

Keith cringed the moment he said it, and it took him a second to place why- at which point, he nearly felt his heart stop.

Oh.

Oh.

No wonder Keith had been so worried. He'd done the same to Sendak.

"Keith, I promise you, that's not going to happen." Shiro told him. "The team might need some time to adjust, but they'll be fine with this. With you."

Narrowing his eyes, Keith frowned. "You're not going to tell them, are you?"

"No, I'm going to leave that up to you." Shiro told him. "But I think you should."

"Not my call." Keith said simply, his tone curt.

Ah. Right. It wouldn't be. If Keith was spying on them, then he had to be in contact with someone- likely someone higher up in the Blade of Marmora, someone whose orders that he couldn't- or maybe wouldn't- refuse. He had an independent, reckless streak, but it wasn't as if he ignored every order that he was given.

Maybe at the Garrison, sure, but that had probably been a joke to him. It was no wonder he didn't take it seriously.

"Also," Keith added, almost as an afterthought, "-my name's not Keith."

That he knew. Had known.

"Yeah?" Shiro asked. "Feel like telling me what it is? I won't call you by it if you don't want me to, though."

There was another period of silence, before Keith finally held his gaze. His smile was both faint and forced, but it was there- which he took as an encouraging sign.

"Kyix."

"Well then," Shiro said, sticking out his human hand, "-nice to meet you, Kyix."

Keith- Kyix- simply stared at his hand, lifting his brows. "Shiro, you've already met me."

...yep. That was Keith.