A/N: My AU plot always started with something happening... and either Ace or Kei-chan disagreed and rebelled against the outcome. It's so amusing www
A pillow thrown straight to his face brought him back to the land of wakefulness.
Azuma Michinaga sat up from his bed immediately, shooting out every single curse he could think of out of his mouth. Who on earth dared disturb his—wait. He had a bed?
Michinaga glanced back down to see what was it that he'd been sleeping on and true enough, he had been lying on a bed asleep like a few seconds ago. And it wasn't just any other bed, it was his bed and he was now back in his room at the small apartment that he and Tohru had lived in together until last year when Tohru died.
How did... he end up back here? The last thing he remember was...
—but first thing first! Just now... someone had thrown a pillow to his face, right? So who was the jerk who —?
"—took you long enough to wake up, you sleepy head!" said someone as a figure he never thought he'd see again ended up stepping into his bedroom. "What're you doing staring at me in a daze? Don't you have to go to work too? Come on... or else I'll leave you behind!"
Michinaga couldn't believe what he was seeing...
"Tohru? Is that really you—?"
.
"Sorry... tell the boss that I had some important matter to deal with. There's someone I needed to look for and get answers from!"
He thought to head towards Tycoon's place to ask him if he knew anything about the situation, but then no one was at home. An elderly who lived nearby said that he saw Sara run out very early in the morning in a hurry—which explained her absence. But what about Tycoon? But the old man didn't mention anything about him...
So he thought about looking for PunkJack—but then he didn't know where else to locate the guy aside from going to the Lounge, but with his Desire Driver gone, he had no way to get to the place. If it still existed.
So Na-Go... then?
Suppose the plus point about being someone from a notable family, is that you'd easily find information about them like where they live...
.
"Michinaga!" cried the girl just as he was reaching her residential area. And to his surprise, both PunkJack and Tsumuri were with her as well!
"Ah good, you're here. We need to head somewhere else quick!"
"Wait, where... what—?" he could barely ask as Na-Go explained right away.
"—Daichi called just now. He's with Sara-san at the moment—"
Now that's an unexpected combo. Why were those two together? And why was everyone so alarmed—As if finding out that the world had been reset again was anything new...
"—Keiwa-sama had disappeared!"
"We're heading to the place where Keiwa went to fight Kekera—", supplied both Tsumuri and PunkJack as Na-Go call out for a car to pick them up...
xxx
The frown on Michinaga's forehead kept on increasing as the group continued to move towards the inner hall.
"So let me get it straight... the moment you realized what's going on you immediately ran out to check out this place?"
Daichi just straightened out his glasses in annoyance as he tried to pay no mind to the scepticism.
"Well, I hated the idea that I don't know about everything so I had to come back here to fact-check everything—"
Neon just nudged his sides as the group continued to move together as one. "Well, just be honest then... it's also because you're worried about Keiwa... right?"
"It's nothing like that—" Daichi spoke out hastily, trying to not let it show too much that he was a bit fluttered. "It's only just because I felt that I still owed that guy a lot... and I wanted to get my payback at Kekera for using me to do his dirty work—"
Sara placed a hand over her chest as she paused suddenly. "But I am worried right now. Keiwa wasn't answering my calls and I had this very terrible feeling..."
Neon turned around as everyone paid their attention towards Keiwa's older sister.
Sara bit her lips. "Keiwa appeared in my dreams... just like back then when that Jyamato Grand Prix had ended. Like before, he said sorry for leaving me behind again... and that he had to go because he had to do something important."
Win glanced at her, concerned.
"Couldn't it just be your own worries manifesting itself into your dreams?", he asked as Sara shook her head.
"No... it can't be a coincidence," she gasped before glancing up towards them. "Because after that I started to recall a memory from moments right after Keiwa defeated Kekera-san." Sara let out another long sigh.
"Keiwa was calling out towards Ace before disappearing—"
xxx
"This place—" Neon gasped aloud as Michinaga turned towards her.
"What about it?" he asked as she shrugged.
"Don't you remember?" Neon asked him back. "This was the place where we used to have that bullfighting game of yours. As well as the place where—"
Michinaga hastily turned his attention away from her. Ah, he remembered now. This was the place where Beroba made that cruel revelation about Neon's true nature... and it was on her supposed birthday as well! How sadistic can that hag even be to someone who has never even done her wrong?
"So what was it we're supposed to do here?" said Michinaga again as he started looking around at the empty hall.
Daichi shrugged. "There should be something," he started to say, walking around as the young man kept looking down at his feet... acting as if there would be some random item lying hidden in between some nook and crannies.
"There must be a reason for us all to come over here. Something that we needed to find."
Michinaga frowned again at the young man. "What did you mean? Did you know something?"
Daichi just shook his head again. "I don't know. For some reason... I can't help feeling as if there's a voice that kept telling me to do something." He glanced up finally. "I don't know why, but as soon as I become aware of myself... I suddenly had the urge to come to this place. And then I ended up meeting with Sara-san."
"That reminds me—" said Michinaga again as everyone turned towards him. "All of us here... appeared to still have our memories of what happened before intact. But earlier... when I found out that Tohru was still alive, that guy didn't even remember ever joining the DesiGra—"
"Tohru?" Daichi said aloud. "You mean... Imai Tohru?"
.
Win suddenly cut in as he turned towards Sara. "Anyway, since we're already here... how about you try calling Keiwa's phone again? It might be possible, that we'll get some clues from there—"
"Ah! Yes..." Sara gasped as she hurriedly took out her phone and hit the speed dial to Keiwa's number...
It took a bit of time before they could hear anything to the point that Sara almost felt like giving up. But then Daichi stopped her, just when she was about to end the call.
Daichi cocked his head towards one side. "Did you guys hear that?" he started to say as eventually... all of them started to hear a familiar-sounding ringtone. And it came from one of the areas where the audience seatings were supposed to be...
.
"Over here!" Neon started to call out as she reached an area where the ringtone sounded the loudest. And then within moments, everyone started coming over to start looking for Keiwa; or at least his phone. Because it didn't make sense for the phone to keep ringing this long and not have the owner of the phone answering the call immediately.
"Oh!" Sara gasped aloud as she finally found the phone and picked it up. She started to browse the phone's content and stumbled into some of Keiwa's old vlogs stored inside the phone before her eyes started tearing up again.
"What was this supposed to mean?" Michinaga asked aloud as Win suddenly let out an exclamation, not far from where Sara was standing at.
The punk-rocker started rummaging behind one of the seats nearby before standing up and pulling out something lodged behind the hidden corners. Everyone couldn't believe their eyes at what they were seeing.
It was a single Vision Driver, in a world where the Desire Grand Prix should have existed no longer.
xxx
"What did you think this was supposed to be for?" Win asked aloud as everyone kept silent.
Michinaga shrugged after a while. "Well, it's not like we're gonna be able to use it anyway. I remembered something about it needing a certain special card to transform as well as the requirement to have your fingerprint registered in it so that you can use it to do anything—"
"Not that it mattered anyway now," added Daichi. "But what I'm curious about was that... why was this driver here still in existence, when the DesiGra had already been dismantled completely. Because even your Desire Drivers were gone—"
Neon nodded. "Not to mention... we found this near the spot where we found Keiwa's phone. As if someone wanted us to find this here."
"Did Keiwa... somehow—" Sara gasped as Michinaga shook his head.
"But what was it we're supposed to do? The only other function we could use this driver for was—" he gasped as suddenly he realised what was it that he almost forgot.
"The Room of Creation!" exclaimed both Michinaga and Daichi, as the latter added a bit more clarification. "The place where we last went to see the previous Goddess statue..."
"Mitsume-san—" Tsumuri gasped before her eyes immediately widened. "Ace-sama! Does that mean—?"
Win nodded grimly.
"It should mean that Keiwa was with Ace right now..."
.
"Keiwa?"
Sara immediately called out once all of them reappeared inside the Room of Creation, but they found that there was no one else inside the place besides themselves. The Room of Creation was pretty much empty of anything... besides the many pillars placed all around that made you think of some Greek monuments. Well, not quite... there was still something else here that was never around when Michinaga or Daichi or even Tsumuri had ever seen.
All six of them rushed towards the sole statue residing inside the Room of Creation. It was a huge statue of a nine-tailed fox in its majesty, with its tails flailing all around as the fox spirit was looking up towards the endless sky. A strong black-looking metal chain was wrapped around the fox spirit's neck and body; as the chains held the massive statue in place and suspended it in the air.
"Ace-sama..." gasped Tsumuri painfully. In another lifetime... she could've been the one to be sealed as a lone statue in this place. But instead...
Daichi shook his head in confusion. "This doesn't make any sense! All the hints we have so far seemed to imply that we were meant to come over here. And it did appear that it was all hints from Keiwa-san for us to find and come to this place. But that guy was nowhere to be found around here..."
Neon glanced down on the floor as something caught her attention. It was a small thing, that looked like a Desire Ca—wait, it WAS a Desire Card! Neon quickly flipped it around after picking it up and as expected, there was something written on it.
.
"A World where the Desire Grand Prix was no longer in existence."
~ Ukiyo Ace & Sakurai Keiwa ~
.
"Guys! Look over here!" Neon cried out as both Michinaga and Daichi hurried towards her side. Immediately after reading it, Michinaga's forehead creased into a big frown again.
"It was a wish by both of them?" he asked aloud as Win kept staring at Ace's statue.
"Wait... was there something wrong about this statue? If this was really a nine-tailed Fox... why did I count ten tails instead?"
Daichi glanced up towards the older man. "That wouldn't make any sense! It should be either nine tails... or ninety-nine, if we followed some of the old legends. It couldn't be such a round number—heck, even Ace's rider form was called Geats IX."
Win kept squinting at the stone tails. "I wasn't wrong... I kept counting up to ten—wait, one tail seemed to look a bit different..."
Without warning, Sara suddenly started to scream as she wandered to look behind the fox statue. Win and the others immediately started to rush towards her as she seemed to be alarmed over something.
"What is it—" he started to ask as Sara shakily pointed up towards the back of the fox statue. Win and the rest of them turned their attention towards the direction where Sara was pointing at; as all of them found themselves at a loss for words.
Because hidden within the folds of the Nine-tailed Fox statue's many tails... there was a lone great Tanuki standing guard behind the Fox statue, watching over the Fox's back while holding a great sword in its mouth. And just like the Fox statue, the same black chain was wrapped around the Tanuki warrior's neck and body; suspending both Fox and Tanuki statues in the air together...
A/N2: It's so fun tryna assign all the different dialogues. It's like playing a game of the musical chair