Another shout-out to resplandorrosa626 today (purely by coincidence, the order of the characters was decided by random number generator) – this time for the story "They Are My Boys", which provided the initial idea spark.
And after saying yesterday that I wanted to make the chapters shorter from now on, this is the longest one yet.
Ryo
For most of his life, Ryo had been certain that one child was quite enough for him. Before Gingka had been born, he had sometimes wondered how many he would like, and had generally settled on one, maybe two. But after Gingka's mother had… well, afterwards, Gingka was all he wanted.
So he was a little bit blindsided by the novel situation of having ten.
Okay, they weren't all actually his descendants. Gingka was still his only blood relative. But with the Nemesis Crisis leaving homes shattered and families scattered, Ryo had suddenly found himself in charge of a large office block now masquerading as a family home for most of the Legendary Bladers and their friends who had nowhere else to go.
Madoka had her family, as did Kenta, but Hikaru's last living relative had been killed in the Crisis and Benkei's house was in ruins. Yuu had never had a proper home to live in, and though Tsubasa's family were safe in Canada, he hadn't returned home to them. Kyouya wasn't going anywhere until Madoka had finished fixing Leone, Chris had never had anywhere to go, and Dynamis seemed strangely loath to return to his cold, empty mountain. Tithi and Yuki had shrugged when Ryo asked them what their plans for the holiday were – neither of them had any family to return to now either.
They weren't his children, but they were his children. Maybe they had just saved the world from a literal god, maybe they had seen death and destruction and battles the likes of which Ryo had never imagined, maybe they were chosen by some unseen force or will that guided the fate of the world from above, but... Tithi was eight. Even the oldest of the Legendary Bladers, Aguma, was barely eighteen. Technically an adult, yes, and certainly a leader of his tribe, but Ryo could remember being eighteen. There was still so much he needed to learn about the world at that age.
And so he, more than anyone else in the WBBA Tower, felt the responsibility of getting presents for all those who were staying in the Tower over the holiday. After all, no-one else was going to.
It was Christmas Eve by the time he managed to get all of the presents together, and he was a bit concerned that he wouldn't be able to wrap them in time, but luckily Tsubasa had come up with the idea of a mini tournament that would tire most of them out even if they got back from it before midnight. So Ryo was left alone in the dining hall, surrounded by gifts and wrapping paper and ribbons and tape.
He'd had to be clever. All of the Legendary Bladers and their friends were more mature than their years suggested, and most of them had been travelling around the world solo for years, so anything that suggested that they were incapable or dependant in some way wouldn't do at all. They were children in his eyes, perhaps, but they were becoming men and women – kind, sensitive, honest, proud, good men and women who knew the difference between being right and doing right. His gifts had to reflect that too. And all of them were so individual that a gift had to be exactly right or something would feel wrong about it.
Gingka was easy. Ryo had known him for so long that it was easier to think of something Gingka would like than something Ryo himself would like. With Gingka, the important thing was moving forward but also maintaining the status quo. Gingka always did worst when he lost things that he relied on. The soft white scarf, identical to the one that had been shredded by Nemesis' attacks, folded neatly into a small parcel, wrapped in brown paper and string, just like all the gifts in Koma Village were wrapped.
To his surprise, Tsubasa had also been easy. Then again, Ryo had known him for almost four years, just a little less than the time Tsubasa had been a special agent with the WBBA. Tsubasa generally had access to everything he needed, and wanted very little – someone who travelled as much as he did rarely needed more than the essentials – but there was one thing he unexpectedly treasured. Ryo had only discovered it by accident, whilst Tsubasa had been trying to track down the Legendary Bladers across the world. An eagle might fly high and lofty and lonely in the sky, but Tsubasa was more human that that, and in some situations still doubted his own choices. Before the Darkness had taken him, he had never shown any lack of faith in his decisions, and Ryo would happily have brought the whole gang of evil-doers back just to punish them for what had happened to Tsubasa's confidence. But for now, he wrapped a solar-powered mobile phone charger in a small box and put it in a red bag. That way, Tsubasa could always ask for help when he needed it.
Of course, apart from Gingka he knew Hikaru the best. She was as loyal to him as anyone, even if he knew he exasperated her at times. It still wasn't clear if she would ever go back to blading in a fighter's capacity, even now, so it looked like they would be working together for a while. She had first arrived in his office fragile and fierce, sharp and shattered as broken glass, and perhaps he had played up the Immortal Phoenix line a few times to distract her from her own dark thoughts. He knew his responsibilities towards her as her employer, and where he had to draw the line between professionalism and caring, but that didn't make it any easier to see when memories of shadow crept up on her, or when sleep eluded her all night. He couldn't give her anything too personal – that would be weird. But she really was like a daughter to him, one of the few girls who had fought to the top of her sport with all her might, and left everything on the battlefield, including, in the end, her confidence and fearlessness. Yet still she came back, time and time again, helping in every way she could and never complaining. In the end, he filled a shoebox with dozens of candles of every shape and size, from tealights to pillar candles that would burn for more than fifty hours. After all, of everyone he knew, she was the one who embodied the wish to light a single candle rather than curse the dark.
Chris was strangely easy. He wasn't one who needed reassurances or care to know what his role in the world was. He just asked to be pointed at the nearest battle and let loose. The thing that held him back was always the way others saw him – seeing a child before they saw the warrior – and Ryo had to work hard to keep in mind that Chris had been a blader-for-hire, a mercenary, before he joined Gingka's little group. Whether or not Gingka's special talent for bringing people to realise the true heart of blading had caught him or not, Chris' job was to blade for others in order to make enough money to survive. Taking that away from him by suddenly providing him with everything he might need would be worse than punishment. But there were other ways to help, and a silver envelope with Chris' name on it now stood among the wrapped parcels, containing a slip of paper confirming Chris as the WBBA's newest special agent, with a reliable income and a supervised workload of useful jobs that made someone with his background into an invaluable asset. Chris would never have to take jobs that risked his blade or his life just to continue to stay alive, but he wouldn't be accepting charity either.
Yuki, on the other hand, was more difficult. Ryo couldn't exactly get him a telescope or something unthinking like that. Unlike Gingka, he was only loosely tied to the past – reminders were painful rather than strengthening, and he kept his eyes on the far horizon, looking forward to new things. But he still wanted that sense of security that only the familiar could bring. So far in the Tower, he seemed to have found that by stargazing on the roof with Dynamis every clear night, but it was clear he wanted something new to focus on now that the Star he had spent his life tracking had arrived and its purpose fulfilled. It wasn't until he saw the way the young blader reacted to the Koma Village Punch Bowl tradition, and his enthusiasm in setting up his own new-old tradition with his family's Yule Clog that Ryo had realised what Yuki actually wanted, and sent a message to Hokuto and Hyoma. The book of traditional tales and legends of Koma Village and how they entwined with the history of beyblading arrived a few days later, and Ryo wrapped it in dark blue paper covered in tiny white snowflakes like stars.
The others weren't much easier. If Ryo hadn't been so familiar with Gingka's outgoing nature, he might have been taken in by Benkei's constant enthusiasm. It was easy to assume that his energy and drive were a permanent state of mind, but Ryo had been there on the day that Benkei had been left behind by the helicopter carrying Kyouya and the other Legendary Bladers to King Hades' Island for the final showdown, and had seen that façade crack into concern and fear for all of his friends as he realised exactly what it meant to face the God of Destruction. Benkei wasn't like Yuu, constantly on the go, constantly looking for new experiences. But what he did have was a generosity of spirit that was unmatched in any other blader Ryo knew. Benkei gave everything. Time, food, protection, care, love – he gave all of it fully and willingly to everyone he befriended, expecting nothing in return. It was humbling. Finding a gift to support such a heart wasn't easy, and Ryo was on the brink of actually asking Kyouya for an idea when he realised how foolish he was being. The best way to make Benkei happy was to let him make other people happy, to support his dreams and give little nudges from the side – and to let him cook. The slim folder wrapped in red paper with Benkei's name on it held nearly a month's worth of cooking lessons from the best chefs of every sort in Metal City and the two neighbouring cities, and Ryo had a feeling that Metal City was going to get a new restaurant in the near future.
Ryo stretched, his fingers cramping from wrapping the gifts. From way above his head, he could just about make out the sounds of battle going on – by the volume of the roars, it sounded like Kyouya and Yuu were battling. Ryo smiled to himself as he picked up the next two parcels.
Yuu and Tithi, the youngest ones remaining in the Tower, had been particularly interesting to pick presents for. They were both so similar in outlook and yet somehow so very different. Yuu was even more independent than Tsubasa, happy to go off on his own training journeys alone despite his lack of years, whilst the even-younger Tithi was desperate to stay with the friends he had only just found. Ryo thought of them like two young birds, one fledged and just needing a slight push out of the nest to soar into the sky and the other still needing to learn how to fly. So he wrapped up a set of camping pots and pans that stacked neatly inside each other in gold paper for Yuu, to support him as he moved out into the world on his own, and – similar to Tsubasa's gift – a mobile phone and charger wrapped in green paper for Tithi, to let him know he never had to be alone again.
Then there was Dynamis, proud, precognitive Dynamis with both eyes on the heavens and feet barely on the earth. He was not someone Ryo had ever expected to consider as his family. But Gingka just absorbed him into the ranks, as Gingka always did, and suddenly Ryo found himself with yet another son, this one even more mature than Aguma and possibly even older. The young man never actually told them his age; Ryo guessed about sixteen from his looks, but some of the phrases that Dynamis came out with made him seem far, far older. Considering Dynamis' vast knowledge, it was difficult to pick out something useful, until Gingka mentioned in an off-hand comment how cold it was on the top of Mist Mountain. Ryo did the research and eventually managed to find exactly what he wanted – a massive blanket woven in midnight blue wool with all the constellations of the sky strewn across it in their rightful places, so that no matter where he went, Dynamis would always sleep under the stars.
And then at last, he had to think of something for Kyouya.
Kyouya didn't need presents. If he didn't have something he needed, he got it himself. It he didn't have something he wanted, he earned it himself. The Lone Lion never accepted help. He was ferociously proud and independent, and Ryo had to think long and hard about what he could give the powerful young man who was his son's greatest rival. Something to help him survive in the wilds? No, Kyouya was too tough to want help. Something to improve his skills? No, Kyouya rejected anything that wasn't his own pure form of training. Something like Tithi or Tsubasa's gifts, letting him stay in touch with the others? No, Kyouya was too proud and individual to want to interact like that. A book on the history of blading? That was laughable – Kyouya read only when he had to. A blade repair kit? Basically useless with Madoka around.
No, there was only one thing Kyouya really wanted, and that was to fight strong opponents like Gingka. That wasn't a gift Ryo could give. Really, he was so much like Gingka in his way that it was funny -
Of course. It was obvious once he'd thought it. Kyouya might want to forge ahead, but he too was tied to his past, constantly returning to Gingka, Madoka, Benkei and Kenta like a planet orbiting a star. Despite himself, he always came back to the ones who had first set him on his path. Kyouya didn't need something to fall back on, though. He needed something strong to spring forward from.
So the little box with Kyouya's name on the label held a key to a small wooden house high in the mountains, the third of three keys to the Hagane family house. If Kyouya was family now, more than a friend to Gingka and more like a brother, then he more than any of the others had a right to that key, and to the place where Gingka would be found when he could be found nowhere else in the world.
Ryo looked at the pile of presents in front of him. Yes. These would do quite nicely for his children. These were the gifts that would let them stride forward out of the darkness and make new paths for themselves in this new world.
He wasn't expecting any of them to get him presents. They wouldn't be expecting any from him, after all – this was all a surprise. Then again, he thought, he hardly needed things. The best gift of all was that they were all there, safe and warm and (relatively) happy, free to be children one more time before the world called them to be leaders.
.
When Christmas morning rolled around and Gingka, wearing the new scarf as well as a pair of antlers (courtesy of Yuu), hugged him and mumbled "Thanks, Dad," into his shoulder, that was all the present that he needed.
When Tithi and Yuki did the same thing a few minutes later, Ryo wasn't sure whether he wanted to smile or cry.
