Chapter 15: Nakama - Comrades
Ra'Baruba'De methodically polished the cafe's windows while behind her Tamasaburou cleaned the tables. They worked together in a companionable silence; the Grongi woman had, in recent months, become less stiff and frozen, even going so far as to smile once in a while, though he'd yet to hear her laugh. It was, he thought, like watching winter melt into spring. Her stained-glass beauty became even more lovely as she'd stopped being afraid of modern humans, of the Rinto who had replaced her people.
Still, that didn't mean he was going to let her cook in the cafe. The two times he'd let her try, the results had been disastrous and it had taken hours for the smell to air out, even with the windows and doors all open.
She returned to the counter, placing the cleaning products in their bucket to go under the counter, and looked up, meeting Tamasaburou's eyes. "He has awakened," she said simply.
"...'He'?" Tamasaburou asked, and straightened. "You mean Yuusuke?"
She nodded once and reached over to stir the coffee bubbling merrily in its pot.
"How do you know?" he couldn't help but ask.
"He is the leader of the Grongi," she replied. "The Ra'Baruba'De will always know of the N'Daguba'Zeba... whether or not Kuuga has chosen to claim that title." She finished stirring and straightened, looking back at Tamasaburou. "His awakening does not please you?"
He shook his head and bent back down to finish polishing the last corner of the table. "No, it's not that. It's just sometimes you and he seem a little strange, with those powers."
"Inhuman, you mean?" she asked, crossing the room to stand near him.
"Well, maybe a little," Tamasaburou confessed, looking at his work.
"He is... not inhuman," she said consideringly. "And by that standard, neither am I. We are simply both what humans are on their way to becoming again. Rinto into Grongi; the awakening of the Agito in the human race." Her dark eyes were on him. "What your children may become."
He looked up at her. "I don't have any children."
"Why do you not?" she asked, expressionless.
He looked away a little, remembering. "The woman I would have married... married someone else." And he'd buried that hurt away, trying to be happy for the both of them. And eventually when he'd seen how happy they were together he'd managed it. By the time she'd been widowed, his love for her had changed into another kind of love altogether, so he'd never asked again.
"Who was she?"
He laughed a little, looked back at her. "Yuusuke and Minocchi's mother."
Her expressionlessness changed a little, shifted. He couldn't quite read it. "And you pine for her still?"
He smiled, shook his head. "As a friend, not as a lover. Not anymore." He sighed. "She was a good woman..."
"And... if there was another good woman?" Ra'Baruba'De asked.
Tamasaburou shook his head. "I'm too old now."
"And I am older," she said simply.
Time seemed to slow, stretching out in strange ways as he stared at the Grongi woman, feeling like a fool as realization dawned across him.
"Ichijou-san," Godai said quietly that evening, leaning against Ichijou on their sofa, a blanket draped cozily over the both of them as a concession to the cool, damp weather outside.
"Yes?" Ichijou asked. He was in a still, quiet, happy place, which was a little odd to contemplate, seeing that being with Godai had put him there and still and quiet weren't terms he would usually apply to Godai.
"The Unknown are all gone, aren't they?"
Ichijou nodded slightly. "We haven't seen any in weeks."
"Then... would you come with me, Ichijou-san?" Godai asked.
"Where?"
"Adventuring."
Ichijou must have stiffened slightly, or looked surprised, because Godai sat up a little and looked earnestly at him. "I won't ask always, Ichijou-san, and it's okay if you say no," he reassured. "I just thought that I'd ask you."
The idea of going on one of Godai's adventures seemed strange to Ichijou. Strange but... intriguing. "Where to?" he asked. "And when?"
"I was thinking Australia," Godai said with a big smile. "Maybe after New Year's?" Then his face fell. "No, that wouldn't work, you don't have a passport, do you, Ichijou-san..."
"Actually," Ichijou said mildly, "I do."
Godai blinked, surprise scrawling across his face. "Why do you have a passport, Ichijou-san?"
"It seemed like a good idea," Ichijou replied, smiling slightly. "Especially knowing you."
"Ichijou-san!"
"Australia..." Ichijou rolled the concept around in his head. It would be summer there. Warm. "I do have some vacation time saved up. How long did you want to go for?"
"Well, if it's me I don't buy a return ticket until I'm ready to come home, but with you... a month, maybe?" Godai's expression betrayed that the time seemed ludicrously short to him.
Ichijou laughed a little. "I can take a month off," he agreed. "And... Godai," he said seriously. "Whenever you go adventuring... I'll be here waiting when you get back."
Two Months Later
"Tell me what we're doing here again?" Ryou muttered as he and Tsugami followed the uniformed Hikawa down one of the sterile hallways of the Police Headquarters Division.
"Well," Tsugami started blithely, "um... actually, why are we here, Hikawa-san?"
Hikawa stopped and looked at the both of them with vaguely disguised impatience. "Because my superior asked for a meeting with me and the two of you."
"Why did we agree to this?" Ryou muttered. Cops were the last thing he wanted in his life. They were nothing but trouble.
"Because you're upright citizens who have nothing to fear from the law?" Hikawa asked pointedly, then turned and continued leading them deeper into the bowels of the building.
On the rare moments when Hikawa grew a spine, Ryou mused, he might almost like the man.
The meeting room door was ajar as the three of them approached, and Hikawa was surprised to hear laughter emanating from within. Not that police lacked a sense of humor, but while on the job most of his colleagues tended to stay dignifiedly sober. A policeman's work was seldom anything to laugh about...
"--wasn't the one who almost got us arrested, Ichijou-san!" a voice Hikawa knew protested. He straightened, eyes widening in surprise.
"Arrested?" An unfamiliar man's voice. "This I've got to hear."
"It was a hostage situation, and the Australian police needed help. We were there." Another voice Hikawa knew, and a hostage situation he knew nothing about, if Australians had been involved.
"So after we took down the terrorists, the police came in and thought we were the terrorists!" Godai Yuusuke continued.
"We straightened it out eventually," Detective Ichijou Kaoru protested. "I had my badge, and your English is better than mine."
"You had a badge, yes--" Godai retorted.
"Aren't you three a little old to be eavesdropping?" a woman's voice spoke loudly from behind Hikawa and his companions. All three of them jumped and spun.
"Ozawa-san!" Hikawa said, surprised.
"Hikawa-kun," she greeted him. "Tsugami-san, Ashihara-san," she continued with nods as them. "Well, shall we go in and get this meeting started?"
"You're invited to this meeting as well, Ozawa-san?" Hikawa asked.
"What's it about?" Tsugami asked.
"I am the designer of the G-series armor," she replied acidly, in the tone that always meant "use your brains." And she stepped through their group and pulled the door open, going through. Exchanging glances with Tsugami and Ashihara, Hikawa followed her lead.
Assessing the group in the room, Ryou began to wonder more and more why the hell he was at this meeting. A medical doctor, a police science doctor, two archaeological doctorate students, another police detective, a woman who was so beautiful she was almost scary, Ozawa and Hikawa... he and Tsugami were the only normal people in the room. Or so he thought until the one guy he hadn't yet been introduced to broke away from Ozawa and Hikawa and came over to him.
"We haven't been introduced yet, have we?" the man asked, friendly and cheerful. He produced name cards out of a pocket and handed one each to Ryou and Tsugami. "I'm Godai Yuusuke." He bowed slightly.
"I'm Ashihara Ryou," Ryou replied, bowing a little in return.
"Tsugami Shouichi," Tsugami said too. "A pleasure to meet you, Godai-san."
"No, no," Godai rebutted with a grin. "The pleasure's mine."
"You're not with the police, are you?" Ryou asked.
Godai shook his head. "No, I just helped them out a little sometimes. It's not very much." His hand was behind his head, but he looked back up at Ryou almost shyly. "You're... both Agito, aren't you? Gills and Agito, I think Ichijou-san said?"
"...And if we were?" Ryou responded guardedly.
Godai's smile was wide and genuine. "Then I'd be glad to meet someone else who was."
Realization sunk in like a stone through water and Ryou could feel his eyes widen, defensiveness melting away in surprise.
"You're an Agito as well?" Tsugami asked excitedly.
Godai nodded. "Though we didn't know to call it that until late last year." A hand rested on his shoulder and he turned to look at its possessor. "Ichijou-san?"
"I'm sorry to interrupt," the detective said with a nod of apology, "but we do need to start the meeting."
"Of course!" Godai said with a grin. He looked at Tsugami and Ryou. "Shall we find seats?"
Shouichi found himself seated between Ashihara and Godai, the three of them Agito making a spectrum along one side of the round table. With Hikawa on Ashihara's other side, he thought, it really was like they were an Agito group.
The police detective who had called the meeting to order sent a stack of documents around the table. As they passed from hand to hand, the stack getting shorter with each transaction, he started talking. "Thank you all for coming. I realize that not all of you have worked formally with the police in the past, so if you have any questions at any point, please ask. What we're presenting to you today is just a rough plan to be hammered into shape." The doctor sitting next to him snorted, already flipping pages. Detective Ichijou ignored the man and went on. "The existence of Agito is not yet public knowledge, but there is no way that it won't become so soon. We of the police department want to anticipate public and political reaction to this change in the human race, and present an example that can be used to show that Agito and normal humans can peacefully coexist and augment one another's abilities for the better." The stack reached Shouichi and he took one, passing it along to Godai.
The top page read "Agito Group."
"The document that all of you should have is an outline for a proposal I and the police department would like to make to you," Detective Ichijou said quietly. "In order to prove that there should not be any legislation against Agito, we want to form a combined task force, comprised both of normal humans and Agito, with appropriate specialist support staff on as many levels as possible, to deal with any menaces that may come up, whether of extreme human, Agito, or alien origin." His cool eyes swept around the table. "We may have months or even years when we're not needed. We may not. I... hope," he said, and suddenly sounded just slightly less sure of himself, hesitating, "that all of you would be interested in being part of this. Please. Because Japan needs this, and in a changing world... humanity may need this."
Shouichi looked at the cover page, touched his fingers to the title. It was the name he'd made up for himself and Ashihara and Hikawa and Kino. For Mana, with her psychic powers, and Majima, who'd given up his chance to become an Agito in order to help Ashihara... all the people who'd fought with him for the last year.
But did being an Agito mean he had to give up the rest of his life too? To be in the police...
"This would only part-time work for all of us, right, Ichijou-san?" one of the doctoral students asked, the Japanese woman. She looked worried. "Jean and I both have our theses to finish still..."
The detective nodded. "Part-time only for everyone," he confirmed, "at least until we know to what extent we'll be needed."
"It would be an on-call situation," Ozawa confirmed. "Everyone on the task force would be issued pagers as well as police I.D.s. As with regular police work, there would be no telling what time of day or night you might be called in for a case, either."
Hikawa was nodding. Ashihara wasn't. "Why would we want to do this?" Ashihara asked bluntly. "My last year was hell. I'd rather not repeat it, if no one minds."
"Page four," Ozawa said crisply.
Godai flipped to it, then looked up quickly. "Ichijou-san," he said in a tone that sounded like a protest.
The detective was smiling at him in an implacable way. "Chief Matsukura felt it would be a good idea to pay everyone for work already done. In most cases, that means a year's back pay or so."
Shouichi stared at the neat columns with names and figures. Godai's was the largest amount, but his and Ashihara's were listed right underneath and weren't that much smaller. He touched fingers to the number by his name.
"Tsugami?" Ashihara asked, sounding concerned.
His teacher had had to sink his entire life's savings into it to open a restaurant. Shouichi hadn't thought he'd be able to do the same thing, to follow that dream, for years, decades, if in fact ever. "I could open my own restaurant," he said quietly, so that only Ashihara and Hikawa, and, he supposed, Godai, could hear him. "If I said yes..."
"There are... less tangible benefits than money, as well," Ra'Baruba'De spoke quietly. She looked at the two Agito sitting beside Kuuga. "Healers, both myself and others. Knowledge, of what you are and what you may become. Legal protection, if necessary. Maintenance for your modes of transport." She had been one of the few to whom Ichijou had confided his plans. He had desired her to be a part of this endeavor since his inception of it, and had arranged her pardon and an identity for this modern Rinto world from his superiors in exchange for her participation.
The younger Agito snorted. "Like I need someone to fix my bike."
She stood and walked to stand behind his chair. He half-turned to face her. She held a hand before his face and then his chest, reading his body. "You were an incomplete transformation, at first. It caused you much pain." She could feel the old ache, the scars and the long time of cold. She smiled at him, mocking all that he thought he knew. "Among my people you would have been culled as weak. But another gave from himself to complete you. The Agito within you is dual; the nature of what he could have become, melded with that which you had already become."
His eyes were wide, staring at her. So were the eyes of the policeman sitting beside him.
"I was an Agito, once," she told him. "All my people were. And now they are no longer, but the seeds grow within modern humans. I can tell you what you are, and what is yet to come. Value this knowledge as you will." And she turned and went back to her seat, satisfied that her point had been made.
"Godai-san," Hikawa asked eventually, while others were making plans about information databases and how to diagnose injuries by either conventional or mystic means, "can I ask when you recovered?"
"Recovered?" Tsugami asked, looking at Godai.
"Yeah," Hikawa confirmed with a nod. "The last time I saw Godai-san, he was in a coma."
"Well, just at Christmas, actually," Godai said with a smile. "Ichijou-san and I left the country just after New Year's, though, and went to Australia for a while, otherwise we both would've helped out with that last battle of yours. I'm really sorry we weren't here."
"Australia?" Ashihara asked.
Godai shrugged a little, grinning. "I'm an adventurer. And Ichijou-san surprised me by agreeing to come with me this time!"
"Godai-san is Ichijou-san's roommate," Hikawa felt obliged to explain to the two Agito.
Tsugami looked up from the document consideringly at Godai. "Godai-san, no offense intended, but... I know why these numbers are next to my name and Ashihara-san's. You weren't there fighting beside us last year, though."
"That back pay number for me isn't for last year," Godai said quietly, "at least not mostly. It's for the year before that." He frowned. "I just know Ichijou-san had something to do with this," he muttered.
Ashihara and Tsugami both blinked, looking clueless. Hikawa took pity on them. "Godai-san is Kuuga," he told them. "Number Four."
Tsugami's eyes widened slightly. "You're--"
"Why the hell didn't you help us last year, then?" Ashihara hissed angrily. "I died last year. Fucking twice, and got my powers stolen, all of us did, while you sat back and didn't do a thing--"
"I died twice fighting the Grongi," Godai cut in quietly. His face was tense, and sad, and one hand on the table fisted, then opened flat. His gaze was steady. "At the end of things I lost my ability to transform, and to fight. I left Japan for a long time and when I came back I still couldn't, even if I'd known what was happening. Ichijou-san didn't tell me anything until one of the Unknown targeted me. I was able to force a transformation to protect my sister and friends--and I ended up in a coma for three months." He paused. He hadn't raised his voice once but the three of them were utterly silent. There had been something raw and powerful behind his words, a self-knowledge that was irrefutable.
"I'm sorry," Hikawa said finally, at the same time that Tsugami said "We didn't know." Ashihara didn't apologize, anger still twisted with helplessness on his face.
Godai nodded softly, the pain washing out of him, transmuting into something else. "I am sorry that I was not able to fight alongside the three of you last year, Ashihara-san," he said quietly. "I would have done my best, if I'd been able... if I'd been here, or known. I'm not that kind of person." He picked up the report. "I will accept Ichijou-san's request to join this team... not for money, and not for political benefit, but because it's the right thing to do." He looked at the others arrayed around the table, talking in twos and threes, and smiled softly. "This is some of the team I worked with when we were fighting the Grongi. They're my friends, and I want to support them as best I can. I want to make sure they can continue to smile. So for them, I'll fight again."
Yuusuke had known that Ichijou had been planning something from almost the day they'd gotten back from Australia. He'd been distracted at home sometimes, and it hadn't been concerning any particular case--Yuusuke had asked. He'd ended up biding his time when Ichijou hadn't told him what he was working on, figuring that if it was important enough or relevant, Ichijou would tell him eventually.
He wondered how much the terrorists in Australia had contributed to this idea of Ichijou's. He hadn't transformed into Kuuga, hadn't needed to, but it had been a close thing for a few seconds. How much had that incident had made his lover want to give him some form of legal police protection for future incidents? Because Yuusuke knew that this proposed task force was entirely rooted in Ichijou's need to protect others. He was protecting Ra'Baruba'De with this, and more distantly Minori, but most especially he was protecting Yuusuke. Which made Yuusuke feel warm and made him care for Ichijou even more, if that was possible, but also made him realize a cold twist of fear that there was something that Ichijou felt he needed to be protected against like this.
Foreign prisons were one thing; Yuusuke had never done anything to be jailed for in his life, and would have been released eventually. Scared people making laws against him for being different...
He suddenly understood maybe a little better why Ichijou didn't want anyone at his work to know certain things.
He knew he'd say yes, of course. There was no way he could say no; if there was something he needed to defend people against, he would do it, whether it was an enemy trying to kill them, or a politician trying to make laws against them without even knowing them. And if it became too much again, if it was killing everything inside Yuusuke... Ichijou would understand that he needed to leave again for a time, to find the blue sky again somewhere in the world. They'd talked about it on a beach in Australia. Ichijou was a policeman, and Yuusuke was an adventurer. It would do neither of them any good to deny where their hearts were, and who they were.
"I'll always come back," Yuusuke remembered promising. He touched fingers to the Kuuga pendant that Ichijou had given him, and smiled.
"I'll always be waiting," Ichijou had replied.
Godai had shaken his head, smiling softly. "You can't promise for always, Ichijou-san."
"Yes, I can," Ichijou had refuted. "Anything less isn't worth promising."
"Kana-san... my girlfriend," Tsugami said suddenly. "She's an Agito too. And so was my sister."
"My sister isn't," Yuusuke replied. "But... she could be. She has the potential too, Baruba-san says. And even if she never becomes an Agito... her children might, someday."
"You can't live your lives fighting for other people, either of you," Ashihara argued. "It's meaningless."
"Then fight for yourself, Ashihara-san," Hikawa retorted sharply. "After all, if that kind of legislation passes, you're the one it affects."
"Like hell," Ashihara retorted. "The only people who know I'm an Agito are in this room. And my old swim coach," he amended. "And... an ex-girlfriend..." His voice trailed off, losing certainty.
"Even so," Yuusuke felt obliged to point out, "do you really want to spend your whole life hiding what you are, Ashihara-san?" Ashihara looked up at him, eyes sharp. Yuusuke smiled, he hoped not unkindly. "None of us should have to be ashamed, or to hide from unjust laws, not if we've done nothing wrong," he said. "If this is a way to prevent that, for myself, for you and Tsugami-san and his girlfriend... and for other people who don't even know what they are yet..."
Ashihara just looked at him, then turned to glare at Hikawa. "I'm going to make you regret ever dragging me to this meeting," he promised lowly.
Tsugami laughed and clapped Ashihara on the shoulder. "Welcome to the team, Ashihara-san!"
Ichijou didn't quite relax all the way at Tsugami's friendly laughter, but he admitted it went a way toward assuring him that his plan might work after all.
"They'll all join," Ozawa told him. "Even Ashihara-san. They're not the type of people who can say no to something like this."
Ichijou nodded. It still weighed on him, though, that he'd sprung his offer on Godai like this, with no advance warning. "If you say so, I'll have to believe you, Ozawa-san."
"Honestly, Ichijou-san," Sawatari chided, "did you think any of us would say no?"
"It's not like something like this has been attempted before," he protested mildly. "Asking civilians for help is one thing, deputizing all of you into a task force and putting you on the police payroll is another."
"I'm still surprised you managed to get the police department to agree to having me on this team," Jean commented with a smile. "The Japanese police not being the most willing to hire foreigners," he explained.
"Oh, some of us might have put in good words for you," Doctor Enokida teased him.
"If they were willing to make an exception for me," Ra'Baruba'De said quietly, "then it would make no sense to deny you a similar opportunity."
"In the microcosm, yes," Jean argued, "but in the macrocosm, modern Japanese aren't always that comfortable with non-Japanese. And unlike me, you at least look the part."
"So are you interested?" Ichijou asked Tsubaki.
"Am I interested in the chance to study the new yet old evolution of the human species, he asks," the doctor replied, leaning back in his chair. He raised an eyebrow at Ichijou. "I do seem to remember you being intelligent enough to graduate high school. Have years of shooting guns rattled out your remaining brain cells?"
"I'll take it that you're in, then," Ichijou replied, ignoring the question.
"Hell yes."
Ichijou smiled, then looked at the four men who would be the primary fighting force of the group, if they agreed. As if sensing Ichijou's eyes on him (and who knew if he wasn't?), Godai looked up. He grinned and gave Ichijou a thumbs-up. Ichijou raised both eyebrows, slightly surprised, and made a small encompassing gesture with one hand. All four of them? Godai's grin grew fractionally and he nodded. Ichijou breathed out something between a sigh of relief and an amazed laugh.
Harebrained though his idea might be... at least it had a chance of working.
Author's Notes: If you've made it all the way to this point, I'm impressed! Either you like Kamen Rider Kuuga and Kamen Rider Agito as much as I did, or you really like my writing. Hopefully both?
I watched Kuuga first and it's my favorite of the two, though I admit that Agito is better written. What I wanted to explore in this was the end of Kuuga (very much left open) and how it tied in to Agito, since the two of them are canonically the same universe. Why wasn't Ichijou ever seen in Agito, helping deal with the Unknown? I mean, it's not like he had any type of experience with that kind of thing. What happened when Godai got back and found out anything like that had been happening? How do the Grongi tie in to the Beast Lords? And, because if I don't see the body I don't trust someone is actually dead, what happened to Ra'Baruba'De?
After going through Kuuga a few times, I concluded that Ichijou is probably canonically gay (via the running motif of people asking him why he doesn't have a girlfriend) and Godai, like his actor, bisexual. Given the amount of doujinshi for the pairing, I don't think I'm the only one with this belief! I also think neither of them can change who they are--Ichijou will always be a police officer, and Godai will always be a free spirit--but that they understand and respect one another well enough that their partnership will always work. That said, the corporate Japanese attitude toward homosexuality is such that "plausible deniability" is a keyword in their relationship. Thus an apartment with two bedrooms... and futons that get put away when they're not being used, as opposed to a Western bed which is a piece of furniture that's always sitting out. There is, in fact, a side story which details what happens after chapter 14, but I have not uploaded it here due to restrictions. If you want to read it (beware: it is graphic), it can be found at my own website.
The Agito crossover came in late to this story, but I hope it tied together well enough the premise of those with the ability to become "agito" and what the Grongi were, and what Godai is. I also hope it tied in together well enough where Shouichi got the money to open his own restaurant! I'm hoping to continue this story further in a sequel or two, if the muses will cooperate, and maybe a crossover with my other tokusatsu series love, Ultraman Moebius... but we shall see. In any case, thank you for reading!