Part One


Chapter Ten

Somehow, the author seems to have forgotten that mine is a comedic story. It's supposed to be light-hearted and stupid with running gags and short-lived jokes. But of course, this is a fanfiction, and fanfiction authors are never satisfied with the simple things; they have an authorial obligation to make things as convoluted and complicated as possible.

Take the current situation, for example: Why did this strange guy only show up after my powers were gone? Because the author thought it would make things more interesting.

Yare, yare. Do I look like the kind of guy who wants a more interesting life?

No, I want an ordinary life, but the fans just can't be happy with that, can they? If they're not speculating about that entirely coincidental glass breaking incident at the end of the anime and manga meaning my powers aren't gone, they're making up ridiculous, unrealistic scenarios for the sole purpose of ruining my ordinary life.

Well congratulations; my ordinary life is ruined.

I hope you're all satisfied.


Dark Reunion

The strange man moved so quickly, Kusuo almost couldn't track him. Fortunately, Kusuo's sharp memory allowed him to think fast—even faster than the people he'd accidentally brainwashed into believing fast thought-processing was normal—and predict which direction the man would come from. He got his left arm up to deflect the man's punch and used the skills he'd collected from his one judo class to get him in a shoulder throw. The man went up and over, as planned, but managed to shift his weight while in the air to pull free and land on his feet. He twisted before Kusuo could recover and caught his heel in Kusuo's side with a reverse-kick that actually sent Kusuo flying. Only a few feet, but still.

Cries of alarm went up from the kids and their parents as everyone scattered to the edges of the suddenly too small yard. Kusuo hit the ground with a grunt, rolling once or twice before coming to one knee with far less grace than he wanted to. His right ribs pulsed with a fiery ache that Kusuo forced himself to believe was minor. After all, while he may not have his powers anymore, ordinary people had become very good at recovering quickly from most wounds. And since Kusuo was now ordinary, that should apply to him too.

A small corner of Kusuo's brain tried to remind him that he'd never been able to use most of his powers on himself—including the power of brainwashing—but he shoved it aside. Now wasn't the time for obscure rules and fringe logic.

"You're one tough bastard, aren't you?"

"Unfortunately," Kusuo said as he climbed to his feet, resisting the urge to curl up in a fetal position and cradle his throbbing side. How do ordinary people stand feeling pain? "I'm 100% legitimate."

The man laughed. "You're much funnier than you were reported being."

"Oh, yeah? Reported by whom?"

"Mindless worker drones; we have at least one in every school containing a person of interest. We had three in your school alone, one in each year. Of course, the third-year drone graduated in April and the second-year drone transferred to Hokkaido for his father's job. We still have that first-year girl, but we couldn't exactly tell her to look in on someone so low-key, especially an upperclassman; she might ask questions, and we have no use for drones with questions. That's why we thought you were dead." The man shook his head with a laugh. "Well, I say 'thought,' but it's more that we hoped."

Kusuo gritted his teeth as the pain in his side seemed to be growing worse by the second. The part of him in pain wanted this guy to just shut up and come at him—or better yet, run away—so they could get this over with, but his smarter side urged him to keep the guy talking. The more he talked, the more information Kusuo had to work with.

"Who is this 'we' you keep mentioning?" Kusuo demanded. "Who are you?"

"Ah, of course. Forgive my rudeness."

Not likely.

"My name is Amamiya Hotaru, and I am a Collector for Dark Reunion."

Static fuzzed through Kusuo's brain as he stared at Amamiya with zero comprehension. "What?"

"Well, that's not the usual reaction I get." Amamiya frowned. "Usually it's: Dark Reunion? Or: Dark Reunion! Punctuation makes all the difference; you know?"

If this was Kaidoh's idea of a joke, Kusuo was going to kill him.

"HAH!" Three bodies came flying over the Iridatsu family's back fence dressed in colorful uniforms. Cyborg Ramune and Cyborg Pokari Sweat he expected; Calpico Girl was a surprise. But considering how she'd behaved on that island they were stranded on a few years back, she probably should have been Kusuo's first guess for backup.

"Cyborg Cider-man #2!" Hairo said, flinging his arms about dramatically even though his mouth was completely visible because of his goggles. You're not a Power Ranger. "We received Peach-T Girl's distress call! What is the trouble?"

"No, seriously, man, what's the deal?" Kuboyasu frowned around the yard at the confused and sheltering forms of Yuuta's friends and their parents. "Why did Teruhashi-san call for us instead of Nendou?"

Then Kuboyasu's eyes landed on Amamiya's rolled up sleeves and the pained look on Kusuo's face. His eyes narrowed through his dark blue visor before he cracked his neck and knuckles simultaneously. "I see. Not sure who this Suit is, but we'll take care of him."

Amamiya looked surprised as he eyed Kuboyasu and Hairo up and down. "Well, Saiki-kun, I didn't realize you had other Talented friends, and they're pretty high-level too, for trash. It seems we need to school our drones more carefully in the future."

"Stop right there, denizen of evil!"

Everyone turned to find Kaidoh standing atop the garden wall with his hand outstretched. A light breeze rustled his spiky blue hair and fluttered the tails of his neckerchief. His face was bold, but the effect was ruined by his knocking knees and trembling arm.

"How dare you intrude upon this festive occasion! For such an infraction, I, the Jet-Black Wings, shall—!"

"Ah, Kaidoh-kun?" Yumehara tapped his booted foot from where she'd sat on the edge of the wall to jump down and join the others. "You're Cyborg Qoo, remember?"

"Oh…ah…um…" Kaidoh floundered, rubbing at his head as he lost the momentum of his speech. Then he made the mistake of looking down at the yard 'far' below, and his eyes rolled back in his head as he passed out.

"Kaidoh-kun!"

"How unsightly," said Cyborg Mitsuya, who was standing to Kusuo's left. Kusuo jumped. Where did you come from?! He was almost worse than Nendou!

"Ahhh!" Yuuta went completely nuts. "It's the Cyborg Sentai! The Cyborg Sentai is at my house! Peach-T Girl, Peach-T Girl, put me down! It's the Cyborg Sentai; the Cyborg Sentai is here!"

"Yuu-chan, shush!" Teruhashi shifted her grip and tapped his lips twice with one finger. "This is very dangerous, right now. You need to be quiet, okay?"

Yuuta's eyes went wide and started dripping stars, but he nodded frantically and didn't say anything more.

In the meantime, Hairo, Kuboyasu, and Mera spread out to flank Amamiya, but he didn't seem to notice. He was still staring at the wall where Yumehara now had Kaidoh's head in her lap as she fanned him with her pink, lacy handkerchief. Amamiya looked completely blindsided, which was an interesting contrast to his carefully coifed image. He turned to Kusuo with an incredulous gleam in his black eyes, which took away some of their deadness, and pointed at Kaidoh.

"That's the Jet-Black Wings? Seriously? Other than that kid—" he pointed at Yuuta "—he's supposed to be the strongest Reborn there is!"

"Kaidoh?!"

Shocked glances were shared all around as none of the P.K. students could comprehend what this Suit was trying to say. He was from Dark Reunion? The Jet-Black Wings was an ultra-powerful being? An ultra-powerful being that Yuuta was supposed to be stronger than?

Please, God, let this all be a nightmare.

"Damn." Amamiya gritted his teeth and looked around, his eyes lingering on everyone in a power suit as he backed toward the yard's front gate. "How are there so many Talents at your good for nothing school? And how did we not know about them?" He shook his head. "Never mind; we know about you now, and that's what matters."

"Hold on, Suit." Kuboyasu grinned, though the extent of its evilness was hidden behind his helmet's visor. "You're not planning to leave already, are you? This party's just getting started!"

Amamiya straightened up and looked down his nose at Kuboyasu with a sneer strong enough to make Saiko jealous. He unrolled his sleeves. "You all may be trash, but people can drown in trash if enough of it gathers together."

That makes no sense.

"Be grateful we were underprepared for your little trash brigade, Saiki Kusuo." He pulled on his suit coat—Wait, where did he get that?—and adjusted it so it settled comfortably on his arms and shoulders—No, seriously, he threw it over his shoulder. Fastening the top button, Amamiya pinned Kusuo with his pitch-black glare. "Next time, you won't be so lucky."

There was a flash of dark light, blinding everyone for half a minute or so. When the darkness cleared, Amamiya was gone.

"What the hel—?" Kuboyasu was cut off by a riotous scream.

"THAT WAS AMAZING!"

Kusuo and his friends were shoved together by the flanking ring of a hoard of children. Every speck of incredulity they'd shown before was gone as they groped at the costumed heroes with their small, sticky hands. Shouted questions and exclamations clamored together until all their voices formed one loud, continuous buzz.

"—and he ran away—!"

"—can't believe Yuuta is actually really cool—!"

"—your autograph? Please, please, please—!"

Yuuta's dad appeared at the edge of the crowded children, clapping his hands with a laugh. "Okay, kids, okay; let the heroes breathe! You can meet with them one at a time if you line up properly. Now run along and get your autograph books."

The children groaned disappointedly but backed up as instructed. Kouta waded through the slowly receding tide of tiny humans and offered his hand to Kusuo with a wary chuckle. "That was quite the show, Kusuo-kun. You really had me worried for a second."

Kusuo took Kouta's hand, his mind racing. Should he go along with the lie or tell him the truth? Based on the intelligent gleam in Kouta's eye, he wasn't entirely convinced by the act anyway, and wouldn't it be better for him to know that some weird, apparently not made-up organization seemed to be targeting his son for some reason?

Before he could change his mind, Kusuo gripped Kouta's hand tighter to hold him in place. "There was a show planned, but that wasn't it."

Kouta's green eyes narrowed, his voice lowering. "What do you mean?"

Kusuo shook his head. "I'm not sure who that guy was, but he wasn't part of the plan. Why would we have a random guy in a suit instead of one of Cider-man's actual enemies like Baron Cola or L-Ginger?"

Kouta nodded slowly. "I assumed you weren't able to get a costume for it, but then your friends joined in, and you obviously had no problems getting those costumes." He dropped Kusuo's hand with a frown as he looked over to Teruhashi who was pretty-girl-smiling up a storm at Yuuta's mother; she still hadn't put Yuuta down. "Should I call the police? If someone is after my son, I want him protected at all times."

"Yes," Kusuo said without hesitation. "I'll keep an eye on him when I'm home, but I have to go to school. Having the police in the loop will make sure no one can get to him when we're not around."

Anger tightened Kouta's face, and he shot Kusuo a sharp glare. "You really don't know what that was about?"

Kusuo shook his head. "I swear, I'm as clueless as you are."

For now.

Kouta nodded and sighed. "I'll go call the police and put in a report." He clapped a hand on Kusuo's shoulder and smiled warily. "Thank you, Kusuo-kun. My wife and son have spoken highly of you, but I didn't realize you really were a hero."

Uncharacteristically short on words, Kusuo just nodded. After two additional pats, Kouta headed inside.

Amamiya Hotaru. You may have caught me off-guard today, but next time? Kusuo clenched his fists. Next time, you won't be so lucky.

#

The party was over, the kids had finally been dragged home by their parents, and Yuuta fell asleep on Teruhashi's shoulder—wrecked by all the sugar and excitement. Yuuta's mother, Iridatsu Hitomi, thanked the teens one last time as she reached for her sleeping son.

"You guys made his absolute day," Hitomi said, practically sparkling as Teruhashi reluctantly shifted Yuuta into her arms. "Plus his week, his month, and probably his year!"

Her hazel eyes dimmed a bit as she patted Yuuta's back. "It's been so hard on Yuuta-chan since we moved here last year. He hasn't made many friends at kindergarten and then there was that bullying incident a few months back."

"Bullying?!" Teruhashi's hackles rose, still on edge from what happened at the party. Kusuo dropped a hand on her shoulder and shook his head; he'd fill her in later.

"Yes," Hitomi continued. Her face brightened again as she smiled at the costumed group. "But thanks to today, I doubt if he'll ever have trouble again!"

Maybe not from kids, but unless this was some prank by Kaidoh—which, while preferable, was the far less likely option between the existence of a real-life maniacal organization bent on purifying the world and Kaidoh being able to pull off such an elaborate hoax—Yuuta now had far worse trouble coming his way.

Everyone said their good-byes to the Iridatsu family and retreated to the vacant lot where Teruhashi and Saiko's lackeys were tearing down the staging area. Kuboyasu, Hairo, Saiko, Kaidoh, and Nendou all stepped into the silver trailer after Mera and Yumehara were finished dressing to change back into their street clothes with Nendou complaining the whole time about how he didn't get to do anything. Kusuo put his back to the wall and folded his arms to watch the backstage drama through the blue-filter of his new glasses. Yumehara and Mera were throwing theories back and forth, trying to piece together what little they knew about what happened. Yumehara tried to pull Teruhashi into their conversation a few times, but God's Perfect Angel looked to be changing sides in the religious war.

She paced back and forth within the confines of the lot, chewing on her thumbnail as she murmured murderously with fire in her visible eye. Her long hair was uncharacteristically frazzled, fluffed at the roots from running her fingers through it so many times, with several fly-aways that seemed to twist and snap like Medusa's mane of snakes. Still, it was a testament to Teruhashi's great power that she maintained her impossible beauty. In fact, anger seemed to make her look even more astonishing than usual.

Every lingering doubt Kusuo had that Teruhashi still harbored some secret dislike for Yuuta was gone, fizzled away under the heat of her obvious rage. She had the air of a prowling lioness about her, and Kusuo doubted she could have been more protective of Yuuta if she had birthed him. It did something strange, and not a bit uncomfortable, to Kusuo's heart to see how affected she was by what happened. His earlier realization of how much he and Yuuta must mean to her now seemed far too simplistic. Not for the first time, Kusuo wished he could read her mind and know exactly what she was thinking.

Yare, yare. Kusuo looked away with a frown. If he'd known how frustrating it would be to not have telepathy, he might have hesitated a bit more before getting rid of it. And if he'd only known a few months ago how much danger Yuuta was in, he would never have done it.

Why didn't I know? Kusuo's precognition should have warned him about this, and yet, the only premonition he'd had about life without his powers was that weird hallucination where he and Teruhashi—

Putting that aside, was it really possible for an organization like Dark Reunion to exist? Even without precognition, Kusuo's telepathy should have given him some clue that Kaidoh wasn't actually a raging chuunibyo. Except Kaidoh was just a chuunibyo; everything he knew about Dark Reunion and his 'destiny' as the Jet-Black Wings was stuff he'd thought up and scribbled down in the top-secret notebooks he kept hidden beneath his bed.

Yare, yare.

Kaidoh and the others stepped out of the trailer, once again dressed in their street clothes. Nendou was still grumbling about not being a part of the show, but the others were unusually quiet. There was an awkward pause as Yumehara and Mera hurried over.

"Are you feeling better, Kaidoh-kun?" Yumehara got right in Kaidoh's face and pressed the insides of her wrists to both his temples. "You don't feel warm." She smiled brightly enough to make imaginary flowers bloom. "I'm so glad!"

Smooth, Yumehara.

Kaidoh flushed red. "Y-Yu-Yumehara…san…?"

Saiko scoffed. "Well, if that's all you have planned today, peasants, then I suppose I'll be on my way."

"Eh?" Hairo turned as Saiko snapped his fingers, and a limo came to a screeching halt in front of the empty lot. "You're not going to stay?"

"To what end?" Saiko turned with an eyebrow quirked as a man in a dark suit and sunglasses climbed out of the limo to hold open the door. "You all know what's going on better than I do, and to be honest, I really don't care."

"Sure, you care!" Nendou stepped forward and motioned around the lot where the last of the staging ground was being packed up. The Kokomins had all disappeared at some point, mumbling about homework or chores or cram school, leaving Saiko's men to clean up. "If you didn't care, you wouldn't have come in the first place."

Saiko frowned, looking from one person to the next. Expressions ranged from hurt to confused to spiteful (Kuboyasu). Finally, he shook his head and turned on his heel.

"We all know my place in this little posse of yours." His nose in the air and his hands in his pockets, Saiko started for the limo. "Call me when you're in need of my expertise." He looked over his shoulder with a grin. "I'm not the kind of person to dirty my hands, but I have no problem paying for others to do it for me."

You're not fooling anyone.

"You're a bastard, Saiko," Kuboyasu called with a fond smile on his lips. "But I know you've got our backs." He gave Saiko a thumbs up. "Until next time."

What are you even talking about?

For a long moment, it seemed Saiko wouldn't respond. Then, just before climbing into the limo, he raised his hand in a farewell salute without looking over his shoulder. "Until next time. Peasants."

Then Saiko was inside, and the limo sped off. Kusuo sighed.

Well, that was dramatic.

But then, with his friends, what else could Kusuo really expect?

"Okay." Teruhashi abruptly stopped pacing as the last of Saiko's men cleared out. Turning on the ball of her foot, she glared at their collective friends and pointed so sharply at Kaidoh, he straightened like a board and gulped. "You! You're going to tell us everything you know about Dark Reunion, and you're going to do it right now!"

Silence reigned as everyone stared, unused to seeing Teruhashi so undone. After a moment, Mera raised her hand and smiled.

"Actually, if you don't mind, I'm late for work."