Light Shines Anew
A/N: This is a sequel to Mimics. If you haven't read that, some parts of this might confuse you.
Chapter 1: A New Beginning, An Old Ending
"It's going to be another short season."
"It can't be helped. So many agents went on the away mission that they couldn't start the B-Rank wars in June like they normally do." Murakami replied, resting a hand on his Kogetsu handle as he and Kageura walked down the empty road of the virtual city they were in.
Kageura grumbled. The previous B-Rank wars got shortened since they had to go through an away mission test. The away mission group just returned from the trip to the Neighborhood a week ago. Since it was July and the B-Rank Wars normally start up in June, they were already a month behind schedule, so Shinoda and Kido made the decision for it to be another short season. Just another eight rounds that would start in a few days.
"The Rank Wars are fun, but what does it matter if it is a short season or not?"
Murakami and Kageura came to a stop to stare up at the nearby wall where Yuma had suddenly appeared. He was sitting down with one leg folder on top of his knee as he rested an elbow on it so he could cup his cheek in his head as he stared down at them with his usual smile.
"You've been in one rank season so you wouldn't get at all how fun it is to go for three months. It's a thrill to see how the ranks constantly shift." Murakami replied. He paused and smirked at Kageura. "Well, for the rest of us. Normally for Kageura squad and Ninomiya squad, they had no challenges and never lost their spots."
Kageura snarled at the reminder that Yuma's team stole his team's rank. "A longer season means more time to get revenge and steal your rank back."
Yuma laughed, eyes alit with amusement. He was so happy to be back in Japan. It was a great experience getting to travel through the Neighborhood again, and this time he got to do it with friends, but being back in Japan was a relief. The Neighborhood was a very dangerous place so there wasn't much time for fun since they were on a mission. By being back in Japan, he could relax and have fun by hanging with his friends and just having rank wars. It was so fun getting to fight where no one had to die.
"You think that is funny?" Kageura demanded, scorpion coming to life in his hand. "We're getting our number two spot back, Kuga!"
Yuma smirked. "You can have it because my team is going to move up to A-Rank!"
"Someone sure is confident." Murakami said, drawing his Kogetsu out. "You think we're going to make it easy for you?"
The amusement only seemed to dance harder in Yuma's eyes. "I would hope not. It wouldn't be any fun if you just laid down and took the beating."
The response was instantaneous.
Murakami unleashed Senku.
Kageura sent Mantis flying.
And Yuma?
He just activated a grasshopper pad under his dangling foot and went flying into the air to the dodge the attacks, his laughter ringing in the air as the three-way fight finally began.
*L*S*A*
"You're a glutton for punishment. Why would you taunt them like that?" Shun asked, staring at Yuma who was just grinning despite the points he just lost as Murakami and Kageura spent all ten rounds of their three-way fight teaming up against him.
"Because Kage-senpai's reactions are hilarious." Yuma replied before taking a sip of his water that Shun oh-so-graciously gave him when he got out of the booth. His points may have taken a hit, but Yuma was happy for the chance to fight two powerful agents two vs one. It would be great experience that would help him in the fast approaching B-Rank Wars. "It was even better in the couple rounds where I managed to win despite being teamed up on." The look on Kageura's face had been priceless. "And besides, I can always get the points back by beating you up."
Shun snatched the water bottle out of Yuma's hands. "I am not your backup stock of points, Yuma-senpai!"
Yuma blinked innocently at him. "You're not?"
"No, I am not!" Shun retorted. "I'll have you know that I improved a lot while you were on the away mission!"
"Oh?" Yuma said in sing-song. "Want to prove that?"
"Let's go right now!" Shun declared, marching towards the booths with a grinning Yuma following him.
"Do you think he realized he fell to Kuga's taunting the same way you two did?" Yoneya asked Murakami and Kageura. They had all been sitting on the nearby couch to take a break while watching Yuma rile up his next victim.
Kageura snarled. "That brat is the devil when he wants to be." He kicked his feet up on the table between them and turned to glare up at the ceiling. "He's always been like that, but I feel like he got worse. I can practically see the little devil horns on his head when he is teasing someone."
"He's just having fun." Murakami said, unconcerned with Yuma's taunting. Psychological warfare was a thing and Yuma excelled at using it. He thought Yuma using it against his friends during training was a good thing. It would teach them all how to not fall for it when in a real fight.
"Where does he get all the energy though?" Yoneya glanced up at the tv to see the fight between Yuma and Shun beginning. "This is his seventh opponent today."
"He doesn't get exhausted since he lives in a trion body." Murakami said.
"He surely gets mentally drained though, doesn't he?" Kageura asked as he watched Yuma's Scorpion blade plunge through Shun's heart. Shun should have remembered that he wasn't the only one who improved. Yuma had spent a long time in the Neighborhood on the away mission. He got into a lot of fights against powerful opponents and gained a lot of new experience.
"Does he?" Yoneya wondered. "When you get drained like that, you want to rest to recover, but he doesn't have the ability to sleep. So if he does get mentally drained, what would he do to recover his energy?"
"Stop fighting." Murakami suggested.
"Stuff his face with food." Kageura said at the same time as Murakami.
Yoneya shrugged in reply. He supposed those were viable options for someone who couldn't sleep. It was certainly a better idea than Yuma doing defense duty constantly at nighttime because he was bored and just decided to help random squads on defense duty. Though, Shinoda and Rindo did end up scolding him for doing that since he had been doing it too much. Yoneya wasn't privy to the conversation, but he knew it boiled down to the fact that even if Yuma didn't sleep and that was well known to the agents now, that didn't give him free reign to overwork himself just because he was bored at night. The way Yuma pouted and complained to them all about it had been hilarious since none of them disagreed with the directors. Yuma got no sympathy from them.
Murakami watched Yuma and Shun meet once more, blades crossing. "It's been a few months since we found out about his...condition." He said for lack of better words. They didn't like saying any words that referred to 'death' when it came to Yuma. It took them weeks to handle talking about killing him or him dying in rank battles without flashes of Yuma's real body crossing their minds. They did their best to avoid the topic around Yuma though since he didn't like discussing it. He wanted his friends to not think of his impending death.
"What about it?" Kageura snapped.
"We didn't find anything that could help him while on the away mission." Murakami said. They didn't have much time to look, but they truly did try to see if any of the nations they went to had technology that could help Yuma. Unfortunately, Yuma was in such a unique situation and since they couldn't just openly admit what the problem was to strange Neighbors, they didn't get very far in their search.
Yoneya stared at the smiles of Shun and Yuma as they charged at each other. After the incident with the Mimics, it took a while for Yuma to fully return to his normal self, but he got there eventually. It truly was amazing how Yuma was able to smile like he did while knowing his body was slowly dying inside his Black Trigger.
"It's strange how little has changed since we found out about his body." Yoneya said. "Kuga bounced back and we all eventually fell back into the usual rhythm from before we knew. He really can just live a normal life like this."
"Not forever." Murakami said softly. They fell into the familiar motions and avoided the topic as much as possible, but they all knew in the back of their minds that if nothing changed, Yuma would die much earlier than them.
It was a nightmare to them.
Yuma was a close friend of theirs so knowing he had a time limit on his life haunted them. He never told Yuma, but Murakami had dreams where Yuma died, and he knew he wasn't the only one.
In the peace that followed the Mimics attack, there were days when Murakami would see Shun with a haunted look in his eyes that only faded when he found Yuma and dragged him out for training. He saw it in the way Kageura would rough house with Yuma more often than before and then offer to buy him dinner at his family's restaurant. That was normal, but they usually only did it once a week. Kageura started dragging Yuma there more often.
It wasn't just them.
Murakami saw plenty of Yuma's friends approach him with a haunted look in their eyes that only died down when they found Yuma and saw he was still alive and perfectly fine.
If any of them spoke of their nightmares, it was out of Yuma's earshot. They knew he hated them knowing that he was dying because he knew it would bother them like this. So, they kept their fears away from him and instead offered him their smiles and just hung out with him while trying to force the knowledge they had to background.
Murakami was sure Yuma caught on to there being a problem. He did have a lie detector side effect, but like them, he didn't want to discuss it. They all wanted to push it to the back. There was nothing they could do by bringing it up. Any reassurance that Yuma could give them would just be empty words because they all knew this wasn't okay.
They were Border agents. They faced danger constantly when they were in the field, but they had bail out to protect them. There was more danger to them when they were in the Neighborhood since their bail out only worked when they were a certain distance from the away mission ship. If they were too far away, they couldn't safely escape, but it was still there. For that reason, the Border agents had less fear of death when they were working.
That was why Yuma's predicament hit them so hard. It wasn't that the agents never got into danger. The Aftokrator invasion proved that when Rabits interfered with their pain sensors and captured the agents by turning them into Trion cubes. Those incidents were rare though and they could get past it. Yuma's impending death wasn't going away though. It was hanging right above them, just waiting to fall.
They were scared of losing their friend.
"Seems you still have a long way to go, Shun."
"You're a devil, Yuma-senpai." Shun moaned as he and Yuma approached the older agents. "Every time I think I'm catching up to you, you somehow take five big steps ahead of me."
Yuma grinned at his friend. "I faced off against some powerful Neighbors on the away mission. Compared to them, you're easy to predict." Though, that might also have to do with how many times he had fought Shun. Fighting the same people over and over again made it easy to see their tells.
Shun narrowed his eyes at Yuma. "Perhaps I should try something new." Maybe a new Trigger would give him an edge, but he didn't have any interest in most of the other Triggers. Besides, Yuma had the same Trigger set as him and he excelled with that. Even though they shared the same Triggers, Yuma was somehow at a higher level with them than him. Tokieda said it was because Yuma was so creative with how he utilized Scorpion and Grasshopper. Maybe Shun should take some lessons from him on how to be more creative.
"Go for it. I'll be excited to see what you try next time." Yuma replied as he collapsed on the couch next to Yoneya, graciously accepting his water bottle that Murakami slid across the table to him.
Shun grumbled good naturedly under his breath as he sat down next to Murakami. "Is this what other people feel when they get their butts handed to them constantly by the same person?"
Murakami rolled his eyes towards the ceiling as he thought. There were so many times before he joined Border where he would quickly excel at something new because of his side effect and because of that, everyone would get disheartened and quit or leave him out because they weren't having fun anymore. "Depends. Are you still having fun?"
"Yeah?" Shun said, surprised that Murakami heard his grumbling and decided to reply.
"Then, nope. Most people would get completely frustrated and stop wanting to deal with Kuga." Murakami replied.
"I do get frustrated sometimes about it." Shun admitted.
"But you're still here." Yoneya said. "Because you want to keep trying to best him. And look, you got three wins today."
"But that's my average." Shun whined. "I haven't once managed to get four wins in a ten-round match against him."
Yuma tilted his head. "My average against Tachikawa-san is seven to three on a good day. We all have a wall to overcome, Shun."
"What's a bad day against him?" Shun asked.
"Nine to one." Yuma admitted. He didn't fight Tachikawa often, but ever since the incident with the Mimics, the number one attacker did occasionally hunt him down for a match. It was terrifying for his points, but it was also a great thrill. Yuma got such an adrenaline rush from fighting the top attackers. It was always a great learning experience for him.
"Makes me feel better somehow." Shun said.
"Mean." Yuma replied, though he couldn't wipe the smile off of his face. There was a reason why Yuma wasn't a top ranked Attacker in the solo rankings. He chose to constantly fight Attackers above him that could beat him and take his points because of how fun those fights were. He fought lower ranked Attackers and get the points back, but that just left him in his normal range. If he cared at all about his solo rank, he could just fight agents he knew he could beat and raise his points that way to get to the top, but that was no fun for him so he didn't do that.
Shun blinked before grinning as he looked over Yuma's shoulder and waved. "Arafune-san!"
Oh no.
Yuma's side effect wasn't going off. He twisted around in his seat to see that Arafune was indeed in the room and because of Shun's shout, he had turned to look at their group. "I'm out!" He jumped to his feet to escape, but Shun lunged out of his seat and across the table to tackle him around the waist to send him flying back into the couch. "Shun!" He shoved at his friend's face to try to get him off of him. "Why are you betraying me like this?"
Kageura threw his head back with a laugh. Despite everything he had been through, Yuma's greatest enemy was Arafune beating how to use yen into his head.
"Kuga." Arafune's call stalled Yuma and Shun's roughhousing. "Haven't seen you since before the away mission."
"Yeah," Yuma looked off the side, glaring at Shun out of the corner of his eyes. "Been busy since we got back."
Arafune stared at him, unimpressed with the lie. "Seeing as you have been gone for a while, have you forgotten how our currency works?"
"No, no, I'm good!" Yuma said quickly, raising his hands in surrender now that he was free of fighting Shun since the younger agent released him to return to his seat as soon as Arafune had arrived.
Arafune raised a brow. "Really?" He drawled, clearly not believing Yuma at all. "Because I spoke to Reiji-san the other day and he said you threw a whole stack of one thousand yen bills on the counter at Mcdonalds the other day for two hamburgers and fries. At this point, I'm starting to get convinced that you aren't even trying."
Yuma flushed when he felt the stares of all his friends land on him in disbelief. He twisted on the seat to sit on his knees and lean his arms on the back of the couch so he could properly face Arafune. "Okay, listen, about that."
"I'm listening." Arafune said.
Yuma glanced towards Yoneya.
Yoneya smirked, amusement rolling off him in waves. "I don't know why you're looking over here. I'm not helping you."
Yuma pursed his lips, nodding in resignation. "Right, so." He ended it there as he lunged off the couch over the armrest and ran away from the group. A smile pulled at his lips as he heard them all laugh and just a tired sigh from Arafune. He would pay for this later. Arafune wouldn't let him escape forever, but that was a problem for later. For now, he was hungry.
"You can't run away forever, Kuga!" Arafune shouted at his retreating back.
*L*S*A*
"Oooh, that's a scary match up." Shiori said, though her cheerful tone was telling Osamu a completely different meaning than what she said.
Osamu looked down at the computer again to stare at the B-Rank Wars first round match ups. It was his team's second B-Rank Wars and unlike last time where they started at the bottom, they were now starting at the top. They achieved their goal last season of the Rank Wars and now that left them as a top team. It was going to make this rank season much tougher since they were fighting top teams from the first round. And with Yuma and Hyuse's competitive nature, they weren't going to accept taking it easy this season since they achieved their goal. They were both gunning for A-Rank this season.
Still, to fight Ikoma squad and Kageura squad in the first match was a terrifying matchup. They only had a couple days to prepare.
"Kageura-san will definitely be aiming for our team. He'll want to steal the B-Rank #2 spot from us." Shiori said. "The best way to do that will be to kill our members quickly before we can get too many points and take a commanding lead."
Osamu pushed his glasses up. "I'm sure Kuga will be thrilled to battle it out with Kageura-san."
Yuma would have fun and Osamu would stress out again.
At this point, all the squads knew how Tamakoma-2 operated. Hyuse wasn't a surprise either like he was in the last two rounds of the last season. There were no more surprise tricks Osamu could pull. It was going to make this match hard. It would have been harder without Hyuse, but surprisingly, he returned to Japan with them. After their mission in Aftokrator and Hyrein's defeat, Border had formed a very tentative alliance with Aftokrator. Hyuse was working as an agent to their team and ambassador for Aftokrator. One misstep from either side and this tentative agreement for peace between Aftokrator and Border would fall to pieces.
For that reason, Hyuse had stayed with Tamakoma. He had remained on Osamu's team which Osamu was thankful for. His team no longer had a goal for the away mission that was urgent, but it was nice to still have the strength of his two aces. It was reassuring for them to still have their backs.
Along with them was Chika. While she had found her brother in the Neighborhood, there had been so sign of her childhood friend. For that reason and perhaps she had developed a fondness of being a Border agent, she had remained an agent. Unlike last season of the rank wars, Chika wasn't hindered by her fear of shooting people. She no longer had anything to hold her back so there were now a lot of ways for her to improve and get stronger.
There was a lot Osamu needed to work on too. He wasn't strong like the rest of his team in terms of skill or Trion amount. He didn't excel in solo combat like Hyuse or Yuma. It was something he needed to work on, but he had time. Until he could get stronger on his own, he would rely on his strategies and working as a team as much as possible in the rank wars.
"Ikoma squad will get the right to pick the map." Shiori said.
"We've never had a match with Ikoma squad where they picked the map." Osamu thought back to the #4 squad. They were quite eccentric though he could say that about a lot of the agents as he got to know them more. There were some strange people in Border. "Are there any matches in the past few seasons where they were the lowest ranked squad and picked the map?"
"Hmm, there should be." Shiori said.
"Can you bring them up?" Osamu asked.
"Easy enough." Shiori leaned back in her chair to glance over at Osamu. "Do you want to call Yuma-kun and the others here to work with us on this?"
Osamu shook his head. "Chika and Kuga went to HQ to train." He glanced at one of the monitors which was showing training room 2 where Hyuse was sparring with Karasuma. "For now, we can work on this by ourselves. We'll have a team meeting to discuss what we find later."
"Okay," Shiori replied cheerfully.
*L*S*A*
"It feels peaceful, doesn't it? After the hectic seven months we had." Arashiyama said.
Jin leaned back in his seat in the booth they were at so he could scan his eyes around the cafeteria of Border's HQ. Peaceful, huh? After the first large scale invasion, Border had grown in strength from going public and they had four years of relative peace. The only thing they had to deal with back then were trion soldiers coming through Gates to attack them. That was simple enough to deal with. Things started to pick up back in December when Aftokrator sent rads here to scope them out and at the same time, Yuma came to Japan. Since then, with all the invasions they had and preparation for a large away mission, there was no peace. Now that the big away mission was complete, it felt like things were finally starting to slow down.
And yet...
Jin grabbed his drink off the table to take a sip of it.
"You disagree?" Arashiyama asked when his friend didn't reply to him.
"No," Jin replied. "I don't see any big attacks happening in the future."
"But something is bothering you." Arashiyama said, able to read Jin quite well from the few years they have been friends.
Jin smiled a bit, rubbing the back of his head. "You got me."
Arashiyama shook his head, giving a small smile to his friend. "You work too hard, Jin." He leaned back in his seat and looked over the edge of his seat to see what Jin was staring at. It was Yuma and Kako. There were too far away for Arashiyama to know what they were saying, but based on the looks on their faces and that Kako was tugging at Yuma's jacket, he had a pretty good idea of what those two were discussing. "We should all hang out tonight. It's been a while since we relaxed properly."
Jin blinked as Arashiyama turned his attention back to him. "We should?"
"You, me, Tachikawa-san, Kazama-san, Kako. The usual gang." Arashiyama replied.
"Ah, that does sound fun," Jin replied, rubbing the back of his head with a sheepish grin. "But I actually have something I need to take care of tonight."
"Something to take care of?" Arashiyama repeated worriedly.
Jin held up his hands in a placating manner. "Like I said, no attack is coming. Don't stress yourself out."
"I feel like I should be saying that to you." Arashiyama replied. "I can see that your mind is running through hundreds of thoughts per minute. An attack may not be coming, but you are worried about something."
"Maybe, but that is for me to take care of." Jin said. "You know if I need help, I'll ask for it so relax, Arashiyama." He grinned at his friend. "I hear you'll be working as a commentator for the first day of the B-Rank wars."
"Taketomi is like a hound dog when she is hunting down agents for commentary." Arashiyama said amused. "I'm surprised she didn't come for you. She loved having you and Tachikawa-san last season."
"Oh, she tried." Jin replied. "But I'm a very busy person. I don't have time right now to do the commentary."
Arashiyama raised a brow in question. "Thought nothing was going to happen."
"Attack wise." Jin corrected. "But, I have a personal matter to deal with."
Arashiyama's brows scrunched down in confusion. Jin didn't have any family left so if he was saying he was having a personal matter than it was likely a problem in his branch. He didn't think there was anything wrong in Tamakoma. Tamakoma-2 just returned from the away mission and they all seemed fine after the mission. Tamakoma-1 and Jin didn't go on the mission, and from what Arashiyama saw, there seemed to be nothing wrong with them. All of them seemed to be good spirits.
A laugh escaped Jin. "Stop thinking so hard, Arashiyama." He pushed away from the table to stand up, pointing over Arashiyama's shoulder. "I have to go stop Kako-san from trying to steal Yuma from Tamakoma now."
Arashiyama twisted in his seat to look at Kako and Yuma again. Most people tended to leave those two to their game. As he looked at them now, Arashiyama saw them drawing quite the crowd so Jin probably wanted to disperse the crowd and probably helped Kakizaki who was looking increasingly stressed out at the roughhousing from Kako and Yuma that was drawing too much attention. Kakizaki always did hate having too much attention on him, though Arashiyama was sure it came from a place of low confidence in himself.
"At it again, Kako-san?" Jin said cheerfully as he and Arashiyama arrived at the group. "You never give up, do you?"
Kako slackened her grip on Yuma's jacket and slouched down to leave her arms lazily draped over Yuma's shoulders from behind while resting her chin on his fluffy hair. "Why would I give up? There aren't many talented 'K's' in Border that meet all of my requirements for my team. I only need one more to have a team with max members."
"Well, it's not going to be Yuma." Jin said. "Konami will hunt you down if you try to take him away from Tamakoma."
Kako smirked, looking quite eager at the prospect. "If she wants to fight, send her my way." She tightened her hug on Yuma. "Kuga-kun can be the prize."
"Kako-san, no." Kakizaki interjected quickly. "You can't make someone a prize to be won."
Yuma laughed. "You're not beating Konami-senpai in a fight, Kako-san." Considering how many times he fought Konami and the few times he fought Kako, Yuma was assured of his mentor's strength. There was a reason why she was the No. 3 Solo Attacker.
"Don't tempt fate, Yuma." Jin said.
Yuma quirked a brow at him. "Why not? You do all the time."
"Because that is my job as the power elite!" Jin declared. "I manipulate the future to save us! You're tempting fate because you think it would be fun."
A grin threatened to split Yuma's face in half, amusement dancing through his eyes. "Isn't that the best reason as to why we should?"
"It's because you react like that, Kako-san never stops trying to steal you for her team." Arashiyama pointed out.
Yuma shrugged. He ducked under Kako's arms to escape her hold and made his way to Jin's side. "I would never leave Tamakoma. Kako-san is not the only one that would get hunted down by Konami-senpai." He shivered a bit in fear.
Jin laughed. "She can be a bit protective."
"Even more since," Yuma motioned to his body. Konami was always a great mentor to him and she was always protective of her friends, but her concern for Yuma only increased since she found out about his injuries. She tried not to change how she treated him, but there were some times when he saw that concern come out in full force.
"Did something happen?" Kako asked curiously.
Yuma grimaced.
Jin laughed again. "Yuma decided last minute to spend the night at Kageura's house with him and Murakami once, but didn't inform anyone at the branch."
"She may have stormed to Kage-senpai's house at two in the morning since she knew that was where I was last out and tried to kill Kage-senpai for keeping me out so late without telling her." Yuma explained. It was sweet, though Kageura did not agree. He was still annoyed about her pounding on his front door in the middle of the night.
"You're old enough to stay over at a friend's house without telling her. She's not your guardian." Kako said confused.
Yuma scratched his cheek, a grimace on his face. "It wasn't because of that."
"Hmm?"
"She was scared Yuma had died." Jin motioned up and down over Yuma. "Since he wasn't answering his phone."
"Oooh," Kako said in understanding. She then turned a scolding glare on Yuma. "You need to stay better in contact with people. Sometimes you are really bad at answering your phone."
Yuma shrugged. Had Konami not known about Yuma's injuries and impending death, she wouldn't have freaked out as bad as she did that night. "It was the middle of the night."
"What's the purpose of a sleepover if you can't sleep?" Kakizaki asked.
Yuma tilted his head in thought as he recalled that night. "I never had a sleepover before that night so maybe I don't really know how they work, but none of us were sleeping."
"Then why didn't you answer your phone?" Arashiyama asked.
"Kage-senpai and Murakami-senpai were teaching me how to play video games so I never heard my phone go off." Yuma explained. "The lesson has been learned if only to avoid Konami-senpai and Kage-senpai from screaming at me about the situation again." Or in Kageura's case, crushing Yuma in training as a form of revenge for having Konami banging on his door in the middle of the night with the intent to kill him.
"Didn't think you would be into video games." Arashiyama said.
"Not really, but Shun thought it might be something to keep me entertained at night when everyone is asleep. He and Yosuke-senpai don't think I should spend all night on the roof, thinking about training and studying strategy." Yuma replied.
"Wise advice." Jin agreed. "All work and no play will burn you out."
Yuma tilted his head in consideration. "It hasn't yet." He had been studying strategy at night since he got this body. He thought it was a great way to improve himself instead of lazing around, but ever since his friends found out about the fact that he can't sleep, they had been trying to introduce him to solo activities that he could do at night. They clearly didn't think he should be thinking about fighting 24/7.
When the idea of video games from Shun got passed to Kageura and Murakami, they had wasted no time in dragging Yuma into a sleepover at Kageura's that involved no sleeping. Yuma felt bad that they chose to stay up that night with him to teach him how to play video games all night. Despite how he felt on about it, Kageura and Murakami said they would have to do it again. They didn't seem to mind foregoing a night of sleep here and there so Yuma could have some company at night.
"That's because you grew up only knowing fighting because of the life Kuga-san dragged you through." Jin said.
Yuma scowled. He hated people commenting on the childhood he had. Yes, it wasn't a conventional childhood, especially compared to the childhoods the people of this world had, but it was his childhood. He had regrets for some of his actions as a kid, but he would never regret the time he spent with his father as they traveled together. "Maybe it wasn't normal by your standards, but that was the life I lived. I don't know what your childhoods were like so I can't miss what I don't know exists."
"Apologies, Yuma. I seem to have overstepped." Jin ruffled Yuma's hair affectionately as he apologized. He may have issues with how Yugo took Yuma to dangerous nations in the Neighborhood while he was a young child, but that was where his issues with Kuga Yugo ended because he knew that Yugo deeply loved his son.
"It's fine." Yuma replied. He understood that his father was a difficult topic. After everything that happened with the Mimics, his fellow agents had a hard time differentiating between the Mimic of Kuga Yugo and Yuma's actual father. Since they never knew the real Kuga Yugo, they could only go on the memories they had of his Mimic and Yuma's stories of his father.
The interaction between Yuma and Jin felt very normal. Arashiyama had seen those two interact enough times in the past few months, but something about it seemed off to him. It wasn't from Yuma. The younger agent seemed the same as always. The one that was off was Jin. Despite the lightness of his tone, there was a strain to his smile, a tenseness to his shoulders. Perhaps Arashiyama only saw it because he was just talking to Jin and he admitted there was a personal matter he had to deal with. Maybe it was because Arashiyama had been friends with him for years and so he had gotten better at reading him that allowed him to see it whereas Yuma didn't see it. No, Arashiyama couldn't say Yuma didn't see it. Yuma was quite observant so maybe he did see the strain in Jin's smile and just wasn't calling it out. Despite his blunt nature, Yuma did respect people's boundaries when they didn't want attention called to them.
Yuma's phone buzzing distracted him from the conversation as he turned his attention to it. As he read the text from Osamu, a smile pulled at his face.
"Good news?" Kakizaki asked.
"Osamu got the round one match ups. We get to face Kageura squad and Ikoma squad." Yuma replied.
"Oh, a scary match up from the get go." Kako teased.
"Sounds like fun." Yuma replied. "I get to face off against Ikoma-san and Kage-senpai." He put a hand to his chin as he thought. "I'm sure with Hyuse and me working together we can take them both down."
Arashiyama stared at Jin. Stared at the pained look that flashed through his eyes as Yuma spoke of his upcoming match. It was only there for a few seconds before it all but vanished and Jin messed up Yuma's hair again, grinning as he did so.
"Don't forget about their teammates. They are all a force to be reckoned with." Jin said.
"So is Tamakoma-2." Yuma replied confidentially. He had all the belief in his team to be able to handle the B-Rank Wars so much better this season. They had all grown a lot since they joined Border. Sure, there was still a lot of room for improvement, but as long as their mentors at Tamakoma were still there, they would continue to get stronger.
*L*S*A*
The boisterous nature of Tamakoma had become such a fond feeling for Osamu since he transferred to the branch. It unnerved and confused him when he first entered the base, but he was now at a point where he wouldn't have it any other way.
"Kage-senpai and Ikoma-san should definitely be our main targets." Yuma was telling Hyuse as they got the table ready for the dinner that Reiji was putting the final touches on.
"Mizukami shouldn't be left out either." Hyuse replied. "He showed his terrifying mind during the away mission exam."
Yuma nodded in agreement. "He also likes to call bluffs. When I fought him last season, he called out what bullets he was using, but he was really using different bullets to try to trick me."
"Surprised he even tried that with you considering your side effect." Hyuse replied.
"Only a few people knew about my side effect back then. It wasn't until the issue with Mimics that it became public knowledge." Yuma explained.
Hyuse nodded in understanding. "And now that it is public knowledge, I doubt Mizukami will try the same trick against you."
"You need to be careful with him. Despite how laid back he seems, Mizukami-san is a skilled tactician." Shiori warned as she set glasses on the table. "Ikoma-san is the captain, but they leave the strategies to Mizukami-san. He's like our Osamu-kun. A person who tricks and deceives."
Osamu raised a brow. He had been described as tricky ever since their first B-Rank War season. Back then, he didn't know whether to be insulted or not from the title, but it seemed his tricky strategies were well received so he would take it as a compliment. Since he wasn't strong on his own, he would do what he had to in order to achieve victory.
"Does that mean it will be Mizukami-san who will decide the map?" Yuma asked.
"He'll probably give Ikoma-san options about what type of map and weather setting to use against us and Kageura squad, but he will ultimately leave the final choice to Ikoma-san." Shiori replied. "That's how those two operate. He advises Ikoma-san with options and leaves the final choice to his captain."
"From my interactions with him, Ikoma doesn't seem to take much seriously and is pretty laid back." Hyuse said as he recalled the few times he trained with Ikoma and how relaxed he seemed during the Mimic incident. "Would he choose a map setting that will be strategic for his team or make his decision based on how fun and eccentric it would be?"
"As eccentric as he is, he takes the rank wars seriously." Reiji answered as he began to bring dinner over to the table. "There is a reason why his team is consistently in the top tier of B-Rank." He turned to fully face the younger agents. "In your first match in the top tier, you were targeted because you were easy targets as the other teams saw you as the weakest. In this match, you'll be targeted for different reasons."
Konami nodded, having a proud smile on her face. "Yuma and Hyuse are a very dangerous combo and all the teams recognize that. They'll want to stop those two from meeting up at all costs so they'll be trying to kill you two from the get go."
"On top of that, Chika-chan is no longer afraid to shoot. Along with her Ibis, she has Meteor and Hound. She can decimate the field in one blasts and the other teams will want to avoid that." Shiori said proudly, hugging the young sniper from the side, who just smiled back at the operator.
"And if that doesn't work, you guys can fall back on the wire strategy so the other teams will want to stop Osamu from planting wires." Jin said with a grin. "With Hyuse and Yuma, Chika's insane amount of trion, and Osamu's wire strategy, you have so many options available to you. If one doesn't work out, you can move to the next plan. It makes you a dangerous team and the other teams will be gunning for you to prevent you from having the chance to do anything."
While that was a terrifying concept to Osamu, he saw the smiles that Hyuse and Yuma had. It had to be their experience and years of training to make them get a thrill at the challenge of being targeted so heavily like this.
"All of those strategies are known though." Chika piped up. "Shouldn't we develop a new one to use to throw them off?"
"I'm not against a new strategy, but this is the first round. If we can get through it without anything new, we can develop surprise strategies for later rounds for when we get stuck in a pinch." Osamu replied as he took a sit next to his sniper. Their team would need more tactics than what they just had right now, but Osamu didn't want to show all his cards in the first round. If they brought something new to the rank wars in round one, it will give all the other teams a chance to find a way counter it that much faster and they would be left in trouble by the end of the season.
"We need a plan to defeat Ikoma-san." Yuma said. "Hyuse only managed last time because he had the surprise of Viper on his side."
"I was also surrounded on all sides." Hyuse retorted, rudely pointing his chopsticks in the shorter agent's face. "I couldn't properly focus on him solo because of that. If we fought him together without any other opponents around, we could do it easily."
"Too bad a perfect set up like that is close to impossible to achieve." Yuma replied, pushing the chopsticks out of his face. "The random spawn points make things difficult."
Hyuse nodded in agreement. "So our first move should be us meeting up."
"Ideally."
"Which why the other teams will want to prevent it at all costs." Osamu said. He glanced over at Yuma. "What about Kageura-san? Is he going to target you?"
Yuma tilted in his head. "Do you think he will?"
"You're one of his favorite people to fight." Osamu shrugged. "He went after you in our first match, but in the second match, he seemed to be using a different strategy. I'm not sure how he operates."
Yuma made an 'O' shape with his mouth. "Oh, that. He was trying something new in our second match, trying to be more careful because he knew Ema wanted to go on the away mission. It didn't really work out for him so I'm not sure how he plans to go about this rank war season. Since the away mission is over, he might not be concerned with that anymore. I do know he is aiming to steal the number two spot from us though."
"He can try." Hyuse scoffed.
Jin stared at the younger team, smiling as best he could as he listened to them discuss the upcoming Rank Wars. They sounded so excited for the season to start. There was no stress of racing to top of B-Rank to get on an away mission this time, but that wasn't going to stop them from giving the Rank Wars their all.
This was the season where they were just supposed to have fun with the Rank Wars as they fought to keep their spot at the top.
Supposed to.
Why did nothing ever seem to work out like it should?
*L*S*A*
Content.
That was how Yuma would describe himself lately. The away mission was as successful as it could be. Chika found her brother and Yuma found Replica. Replica was damaged, but he was alive. Currently, he was in Kinuta's lab. The R&D director told Yuma he would take a look at Replica and try to do what he could as a way to pay Yuma and Replica back for the help and information they had given Border. As good as Kinuta was, he didn't have the same experience with Trion and Neighbor technology like Yugo did so it was going to take Kinuta time to figure it out. Not to mention that it wasn't his main priority as he had other commitments in relation to his job.
But Replica was alive and that was what truly mattered to Yuma. He waited this long to find Replica. He could wait a bit longer for Replica to being fully repaired.
With all that in place, ever since he came back from the Neighborhood, Yuma found it hard to stop smiling.
He was just so happy right now.
It had a lot to do with having Replica back, but there was a part of Yuma that realized he was happy to be back in Japan. He was from the Neighborhood. He grew up in that world and he would never forget the years he spent traveling with his father, but the last few years he spent living in there, fighting in Calvaria, he knew he hated living. Coming to Japan and meeting all his friends, joining Border, made Yuma the happiest he had been in such a long time. While the agents on the away mission had been excited to see the Neighborhood, Yuma was the opposite since he already knew so much about that world. For Yuma, he was excited to return to Japan because there was still so much he wanted to learn and experience in this world.
So much fun to be had.
Which was why Yuma's smile was practically glued to his face as he stared up at the stars. He shouldn't be smiling as the Rank Wars would begin in a few days and he should be thinking of how to beat Ikoma and Kageura, but he was just so excited about how much fun everything was going to be.
Kageura was upset the Rank Wars was going to be a short season again. Yuma didn't know what a full season was like, but the idea of a full season sounded fun to him. A much longer season would be exciting since Yuma would get to fight as much as he liked though he knew a full season might stress his poor captain out. A second shorter season would be better for Osamu and his stress levels as he trained to get more used to fighting.
The sound of the door opening behind him had Yuma pulling his eyes off the stars to look over at Jin approaching him with two steaming mugs.
"It's late. Shouldn't you be sleeping?" Yuma asked.
"It's not that late, Yuma. It's only eleven." Jin replied as he held out one of the mugs to his friend. "Cocoa?"
Yuma smiled, taking the drink. "A bit warm for cocoa, isn't it?"
"Maybe." Jin agreed before taking a sip of his own cocoa as he sat on the ledge. While Yuma had his legs dangling over the edge, Jin chose to keep his legs planting on the roof.
Yuma eyed his friend out of the corner of his eyes. "You've had a look in your eyes all day. Do you have something you want to say?" He sips at his cocoa while watching Jin. It was interesting to watch Jin's expression twist into one of pain since the older agent very rarely let anything show on his face. "You're not usually one to beat around the bush with me."
Jin chuckled, though it sounded strained. He had a habit of not saying anything straight to people as he pushed them down the path he wanted them to take to shift their future onto a better path. With Yuma, that wasn't really possible since his side effect allowed him to read situations really well. For that reason, he was usually as direct as he could be with his tiny kōhai.
"I guess I don't want to say because I know how happy you are right now." Jin explained.
"Drawing it out will only make it worse. Causes anxiety in me and you." Yuma hummed thoughtfully. "What was that phase? Rip it off like a band-aid?"
Jin laughed at the twisted expression of confusion on Yuma's face. Yuma had been trying to get an understanding of the idioms they used in this world and using them in sentences. It still confused him sometimes, but he was curious enough to want to learn them and see if he could use them correctly. "You used it right."
Yuma looked proud for a second, but only a second as it quickly washed away because he knew something was still bothering his friend. "So?" He prompted.
Jin sighed, putting his mug down next to him and twisted a bit to angle himself towards his friend so he could look him in the eyes. "You've run out of time, Yuma."
A/N: Since the away mission is still a long ways off from starting in the manga, I am only making guesses as to what happened on it. I am going to try to avoid talking about the away mission as much as possible in this story for that reason. In my head, I imagine Kageura squad, Murakami, and Kitora going on the away mission which is why Murakami and Kageura made mentions of it.