Light Shines Anew
Chapter 29: Tamakoma Branch
A glass was set down on the table by Yuma.
Yuma followed the hand that put it down to look at the girl with long black hair. "Um..."
"Usami Shiori." Shiori said, shooting a sweet smile at Yuma. "We're on the same team, Yuma-kun. I'm your–"
"Operator." Yuma finished for her as he recognized the name. "Jin said that the other day." He shifted his attention to look at the boy that was sitting across from him at the table with his face still buried in his hands. "And you're Osamu, right? The captain of our team?"
Osamu dragged his face out of his hands at being addressed. "Yes, did Jin-san tell you about us?"
"Izumi-san actually." Yuma said. "Chika is the sniper and Hyuse is an Attacker." He pointed at Hyuse. "Izumi-san also said he is also a Neighbor."
Osamu nodded, brows furrowed in confusion. "Why does Izumi-senpai get a honorific but Jin-san doesn't?"
"Yuma hasn't accepted the use of honorifics yet. They are frustrating him. Izumi just got one because he saved Yuma from getting killed by Trion Soldiers in the hospital." Jin explained.
"Trion Soldiers?!" Osamu's attention snapped back to Yuma in concern, but Yuma didn't seem as worried about the idea that Trion Soldiers attacked his hospital. It really didn't surprise Osamu. Yuma never seemed worried when Trion Soldiers showed up. They were just too common in his life for him to care about an attack.
"Eh, we were in the Neighborhood. Attacks like that are really common." Jin said with a shrug.
"Geez," Hyuse glared at Yuma. "We can't send you anywhere."
Yuma glared back. "I could have handled it if I had my Trigger." Which, he still didn't have it back. Jin promised to get it back to him, but he had yet to do that.
"You're still recovering from your surgery, Yuma." Jin pointed out as if he had read Yuma's mind. Although, at this point, now that they were out of the Neighborhood, there was less concern with Yuma activating his Black Trigger. The dangerous part of Mikado City was the Restricted Zone and Yuma had no reason to be heading to the Restricted Zone right now. For that reason, he didn't have to worry about Yuma getting into trouble. "But, if you promise not to throw yourself into any battles, I can return your ring to you."
"Hmm?" Yuma looked down at his hand, his Trion hand, that rested on the table. He turned it palm up and opened and closed his hand a few times. With each day that passed, moving became easier and easier. His body was getting used to the Trion parts and wasn't as sore or painful as it was when he first woke up in his hospital room. Still, he could also tell that he wasn't fully recovered. Trion bodies gave them an avatar to fight in, but that didn't mean they could just ignore the injuries to their real bodies and continue fighting on without worry. He needed to give his body time to heal without pushing himself too hard. "Yeah, I won't go looking for fights."
Jin smiled. "Then," He whipped his hand out of his jacket pocket to reveal the small ring. It was amazing how something so small could hold so much power.
And it wasn't just the Black Trigger.
Its wielder was just as amazing.
"Here you go, Yuma. I can give it to you, but so you know, you made an agreement with Commander Kido when you joined Border to only use it in emergencies." Jin explained as he passed the ring over to the waiting Yuma. "So, even when you fully recover from your surgery, don't go thinking you can activate for small reasons. It has to be an emergency."
Yuma examined the ring that was sitting in his palm. He knew there was a Black Trigger created by his father. It was the last thing he remembered happening before he woke up in the hospital. He just never imagined it would be this small. "What is an emergency in this context?"
"A large scale invasion from a Neighbor nation." Rindo answered.
Yuma wrinkled his nose. That was it? In the Neighborhood, he used his Trigger for everything. Everywhere he went, he would have a reason to activate his Trigger. To have restrictions on when he could use his Triggers sounded so stifling. It wasn't at all how he was used to living, but since no one was disagreeing with what Rindo and Jin said, it was probably how it was here and it was something Yuma originally agreed to when he came here.
He could play nice for now.
Especially if it meant getting to keep his father's Black Trigger.
He didn't want it taken away again.
"Fine, fine. No trying to blow up any buildings."
"Were you planning to blow up buildings?" Konami demanded.
"No." Yuma didn't run around causing destruction. "I was being..." He trailed off, unsure of what he was trying to say.
"Fictitious." Reiji suggested.
That did nothing to help Yuma. His brows just furrowed in confusion.
"It means to be imaginary." Reiji explained. "It's just you saying something wild and out there, Yuma."
Well, that sounded right to Yuma based on what he was saying. He was just saying nonsense to show that he agreed with not causing trouble while he was here. "Thanks, uh..."
"Kizaki Reiji." Reiji said. "You just call me Reiji-san."
Yuma smiled in appreciation at Reiji. "Thanks, Reiji..." He wrinkled his nose a bit. "-San."
"Why does it look so painful for you to say that?" Konami asked.
Jin laughed, though it seemed to be more of a guilty laugh. "We didn't push Yuma to use honorifics when we learned about his amnesia. We didn't want to overwhelm him with everything at once."
Konami's glare softened a few degrees. "I understand that, but being back in Japan now, it's really something you need to get used to, Yuma. It will only cause more problems down the line if you don't get comfortable with them."
"It might cause issues, but I think most of the agents will be pretty lenient with Yuma's lack of honorifics, at least for a little bit." Karasuma pointed out. The agents would surely be sympathetic to Yuma's amnesia and give him some leeway with certain things, but it wouldn't last. Once Yuma got more used to how Japan worked, that leniency would go away. "We won't push you on the honorifics, Yuma, but you should try them out occasionally."
"Right..."
"Karasuma Kyosuke." Karasuma said.
"We call him Torimaru." Hyuse added.
"Torimaru?" Yuma repeated, blinking in confusion.
"Tachikawa-san messed up the reading of his name and called him Torimaru. It ended up becoming his nickname." Jin explained.
"Karasuma...Torimaru..." Yuma mouthed the different names to himself, and only ended up making himself more confused. Those two names didn't sound anything alike. Either Tachikawa was really just as much of an idiot as Izumi told him his captain was or Yuma was missing something in regards to how that could have happened.
"Forget Torimaru." Konami shoved her teammate out of the way and appeared next to Yuma.
"Rude." Karasuma said behind her.
Konami ignored him and pointed at herself. "I'm Konami Kirie. I'm your mentor, Yuma."
Mentor?
Yuma felt his shoulders tense up.
Like someone who trained another person?
"My only mentor is my father." Yuma retorted, pushing away from the table to get away from Konami, who looked surprised at his sudden outburst.
Without a backwards glance, Yuma fled the room only slowing down temporarily to scoop his bag up off the floor by the door where he abandoned it earlier. As the door slammed shut behind him, Konami turned to Jin for answers as she hadn't expected such a sharp response to revealing what her relationship with Yuma had been.
"Ah," Jin sighed. "Don't look at me like that, Konami."
"How else am I supposed to look at you? Why did Yuma just run out of here?" Konami demanded.
"Because you screwed up." Hyuse replied which got Konami's glare to switch to him, but he just met it head on with a scowl.
"Shut up, Hyuse. That wasn't like Yuma at all." Konami snapped.
"Konami," Jin called to get her attention back on him. "Right now, Yuma just lost five years worth of memories. He is a sixteen year old with the mind of an eleven year old. His last memory is his father's death. On top of that, some strangers dragged him to a strange world he doesn't understand and we keep having to throw information about Japan, about Border, about us at him. He is confused and frustrated on top of dealing with the fresh grief of his father's death. Don't push him right now, okay?"
Konami's glare dropped as it shifted into a soft look of understanding. "I'm not pushing him, Jin. He is a bit off from the Yuma we saw a few weeks ago, but he didn't seem so off that he would get upset when I told him I trained him." It was confusing and concerning for her that Yuma just ran off because of the word 'mentor.' She didn't understand why that simple word would upset him. Yuma wasn't offended at all about having her as a mentor when he joined Tamakoma back in December. Did something happen in the five years between Yugo's death and his arrival in Japan that caused a shift in Yuma's mentality? Something beyond him moving on from his father's death?
"Could be an act he is putting on." Reiji suggested. "I doubt Yuma would want us to look down on him because he is struggling with the amnesia so he is trying to behave like he is fine."
"He's not doing a very good job then." Hyuse muttered.
"Didn't I tell you to shut up?" Konami said.
Hyuse rolled his eyes at her.
"Jin-san, about the amnesia. You said it wasn't permanent?" Karasuma asked.
"Hmm, that's what his doctor believes. Of course, there is always a slim chance they won't return. However, Yuma did get hit with a memory trying to resurface on the away ship which caused him to have a headache. Based on that, I think it is very likely his memory will recover." Jin replied. "For now, I want to keep Yuma at Tamakoma and try to jog his memories. You saw how he reacted to Konami just mentioning she was his mentor. I think we have been throwing too much at him today and that was the last straw. He needs some time to calm down. Considering this, I don't want anyone at HQ to know he is back just yet. They'll just come here and hound him and that will overwhelm him too much so for now, keep his return a secret, okay?"
Chika stared worriedly at the door that Yuma just disappeared through. She had never seen Yuma just run off like that instead of saying whatever was on his mind. Clearly, something Konami said upset him, but he normally would have spoken his mind. It wasn't like him to keep it to himself. With everything they have been through in the months they've known each other, he had been becoming so much better at opening up to them and telling them what he was feeling.
All of that progress was just gone.
Yuma didn't trust them anymore.
All that trust was just gone and he was keeping his feelings to himself again.
She wanted to go talk to Yuma, but she didn't move from the table. Jin was asking them to give Yuma his space. He was warning them not to overload Yuma's mind because it would upset him and cause him to get frustrated. Right now, Yuma was already at that point. Too much had been thrown at him today. She wasn't sure of everything that Yuma had done today because they had only just learned he was back, but Jin seemed to have been with him all day which meant Jin knew they were pushing Yuma too far already.
They needed to give Yuma his space right now.
*L*S*A*
Yuma ran out of the room so fast that he didn't even take a moment to think that he didn't know anything about this building. It didn't look nearly as big as Border's HQ did, but there were clearly places to go. Upstairs? Downstairs? Outside?
He didn't know where to go.
He just wanted to get out of the room.
There was too much going on.
It sucked because he was generally curious about the people that Jin said were the Tamakoma agents. He said they were Yuma's friends. For as confused as Yuma was with everything going on, he did want to try to ease some of the confusion.
Unfortunately, nothing he was told did anything to form the picture on the broken puzzle in his head.
And then Konami had to go and say she was his mentor.
The only person who Yuma accepted as a teacher was his father. His father was his mentor who taught him how to fight and how to use strategy and how to survive a battlefield.
He knew.
He knew that his father died five years ago.
He knew Konami was claiming herself as his mentor because she was the one who came in and filled his father's spot.
But...
It was too fresh.
It may have been five years for everyone else, but his father's death was just too soon. Too fresh in Yuma's mind. He didn't want someone coming in and trying to fill Oyaji's spot.
"Ah, what's this? I didn't know you were back Yuma-kun."
Yuma looked up, tightening his grip on his bag when he saw a woman walking down the stairs.
"The black hair suits you really well, but it will take some time to get used to after seeing you with white hair for so long." She added with a soft, kind smile.
"Um..." Yuma knew she had to be a part of Border. She was in a Border base after all, but like with everything else in his life right now, nothing was coming to mind as he stared at her. "Sorry, I lost my memories in the surgery. Who are you?"
Yuri's eyes widened in surprise before they softened back into that kind look. "I'm sorry to hear that, Yuma-kun. I'm Rindo Yuri. I'm the operator for Tamakoma-1."
Rindo. That was what Yuma's mind chose to latch onto. If she had that surname, that meant she had to be related to the director of the Tamakoma branch. "Good to meet you again, Rindo...san." He added after a moment of hesitance.
Yuri laughed lightly. "You can call me Yuri. Everyone here does. It would get too confusing if you called me Rindo-san since that is how everyone refers to my uncle."
"Alright. Yuri."
Yuri just continued to smile, unaffected by the lack of honorific. She wasn't sure if Yuma dropped it on purpose or he didn't realize he had forgotten it. She knew he grew up in the Neighborhood so Japanese wasn't his first language. Considering he didn't remember her, she would wager a guess that Yuma's memory loss went back to before he came to Japan so she wasn't going to push him on anything until she got more information on what happened.
Information that she would get from someone else. Based on Yuma's distraught expression, he wasn't the person Yuri should be pressuring for answers.
"Is there anything I can get for you, Yuma-kun?" Yuri asked.
"I...don't know." Yuma looked around the entryway as he was unsure of where he was trying to escape too. "I just want somewhere private. I want to rest."
Yuri nodded in understanding. "Can I show you to your room then?"
"My room?"
Yuri pointed back up the stairs she just came down from. "It's right up the stairs."
Nothing but kind honesty was coming from her.
It was strange. Kindness wasn't unknown to Yuma. It just wasn't commonplace in the Neighborhood since every place he traveled to people were fighting every day to just survive. That wasn't to say there weren't nice people in the Neighborhood, but it was not a place to assume there were good intentions in a majority of the people over there.
Assuming people were good natured just because they gave kind words would be how he got hurt, but...
Yuma gingerly touched his eyes. His father died for him. His father died and passed on multiple gifts to Yuma to keep his son safe since Yugo could no longer be by his side and protect him. Being cautious of those around him was how he stayed safe, but the gift of his father's side effect meant Yuma could see the truth in the kindness being directed at him.
"Yuma-kun?"
Yuma snapped his attention back to Yuri, who was still waiting for his answer. "Please show me."
*L*S*A*
Osamu stared at the door that his friend ran through a few minutes ago. Ever since it was revealed that Yuma had amnesia, he hadn't been able to pull his smile out. Granted, it had only been about twenty minutes since Yuma walked through that door, but still. He couldn't even muster a smile for Yuma right now as his worry was too prominent. Dragging his eyes off the door that Yuma clearly would not be coming back through, Osamu instead turned his attention to Jin and Rindo. "You said the amnesia was most likely caused by the trauma of the surgery. Could you elaborate on that?"
Jin crossed his arms and twisted his head around as he rolled the question around in his head. "Well, we only have theories of why he got amnesia. Nothing is concrete. If–when–Yuma's memories come back, it's likely he won't know what caused the amnesia either."
"If he even remembers any of this." Reiji said.
"What does that mean? What won't he remember?" Konami asked confused.
"I only have a basic understanding of amnesia, but from what I know, usually when people recover their memories, they forget the period of time where their memories were missing. Meaning," Reiji used his finger to trace around the whole room, including everyone in it. "Everything that just happened now with Yuma would vanish from his memories. The moment he met Jin in the hospital after his surgery would be gone. And whatever else happens in this period of time. That is the typical response to recovering from amnesia. However..." He trailed off, glancing towards Jin.
Jin nodded. "Yuma's entire health related issues are completely unprecedented. We don't know a for sure reason for the cause of his amnesia. It could be trauma related to the surgery. It could be he repressed the memories to protect himself. It could have also been because his real body was sealed for five years and the eleven year old version was brought out. The last thing he remembers is his father's death and then his body was sealed in a Black Trigger and then he was waking up in the hospital. Those five years just vanished. Sorry, Four-eyes, but I don't have a solid answer as to which of those caused the amnesia. It could also be something completely else."
"I see." Osamu sighed. It wasn't anyone's fault that this happened. It was just horrible luck that Yuma lost five years worth of memories. He had thought maybe knowing exactly what caused the amnesia might help them to help Yuma get his memories back. It figured that it would be a long shot though. Yuma had some truly difficult health issues and nothing would ever be simple with him and those health issues.
Perhaps he could try researching amnesia. Osamu didn't actually know anything about amnesia beyond it being a loss of memory. It was never something he felt he needed to concern himself with, but maybe it was time to see if he could figure out anything about it. He just wasn't sure what looking up amnesia would do. Clearly there was no clear cut solution to amnesia since Yuma's doctors weren't able to give them anything that could help him to get his memories back.
The door to the room was knocked opened.
"Did someone order pizza?" Yuri called as she came in with a couple of pizza boxes, knocking the door closed behind her with her foot.
"Oh, I forgot about dinner." Konami said. The frantic excitement and then despair that resulted from Yuma's return had her completely forgetting that Reiji ordered them pizza to make up for Jin skipping out on his day to make dinner.
"I saw Yuma-kun." Yuri added as she set the pizzas down on the counter. "I showed him to his room as it seemed he wanted to be alone."
"Thank you, Yuri-san." Jin replied, feeling a sense of relief. He had forgotten when Yuma ran out of here that he didn't remember the layout of the base. Yuri's timing in running into Yuma was impeccable.
*L*S*A*
Yuma's bag fell off his shoulder and hit the floor the moment he entered the room that Yuri led him to. Understanding his need for privacy right now, Yuri had excused herself as soon as he entered his room. Yuma barely noticed her departure as he was looking at the room. There wasn't a lot in here. A bed, a desk, and some weird black box thing that had a screen on it. It looked like the thing that was in the room downstairs.
Ignoring it, Yuma made his way over to his bed and fell on it, digging his hands under the pillow as he laid face down on the bed to bury his face in the pillow. He had been so eager to leave his hospital room and to get out of his bed as he had been getting bored being stuck inside for so long, and now, he was escaping being around people and seeing this new world to just throw himself on another bed and hide away.
Releasing a sigh, Yuma clawed his hand out from under the pillow at the top so he could lift his face from the pillow and stare at the ring that Jin had handed back to him. The ring that was created by his father to save his life.
The ring that was actually a Black Trigger.
All Yuma needed to do was activate his Trigger. He's killed Marmods be–
Yuma stared at his hand that he had thrown out in front of him. He had been...
A green shield produced from a glowing ring on his left hand.
What was he doing?
Yuma snapped up to his knees, eyes never leaving the Black Trigger. When the Trion Soldiers attacked the hospital, he had tried to defend himself with a Shield without activating a Trigger. It had made no sense to Yuma at the time. He had faced off against Trion Soldiers his whole life, but he always knew to activate his Trigger before he engaged in combat.
But in the hospital, he just threw his hand up to defend himself.
There was no reason for Yuma to do something like that. He had never been stupid enough to try to defend against a Trion Soldier without a Trion body, but his body had just moved without him thinking.
It didn't work out for him because he didn't have a combat Trigger on him when the Trion Soldiers attacked, but it was still weird and confusing for him to do something like that. He was basically asking to get killed by doing something like that, but what if there was a reason for why his body reacted like that?
Based on what he was told, he had been living in a Trion body for five years. If he was in a Trion body that was created by a Black Trigger, then perhaps the reason his body moved the other day was because he had the safety a Trion body that let him fight and defend himself without activating his Trigger.
His body's muscle memory almost got him killed the other day.
Yuma rocked backwards so his back would hit the wall. He winced as his side protested the action so he found himself massaging his sore side.
Nothing about any of this felt right to him.
Sitting here, staring at this room, Yuma just didn't feel connected to any of it. Maybe it had to do with how bare the room looked. There wasn't much personalization in the room, but that shouldn't be too weird to Yuma. He spent his whole life traveling so he didn't really personalize anything to his taste.
Considering the lack of personal effects in the room, Yuma should feel at home in the barren room, and yet, he couldn't. This room didn't feel right. It wasn't his room. He didn't care what the name plate on the door in the hall said.
Yuma's eyes landed on the desk, or more specifically, the green object sitting in the center of the desk. Curious as to what it was, Yuma slid off the bed and made his way over to it. He picked up the object, rolling it over in his hand as he examined it. It looked different than what he was used to, but he could make a pretty good guess that it was likely a Trigger.
If he wanted to check if he was right, he could ask someone or even just try to activate it. After all, if it was sitting in this room that Yuri claimed was his, it had to be Yuma's Trigger, right? If he could only use his Black Trigger in emergencies, then he had to have another Trigger that he could use so it had to be this.
Instead of trying to activate it to see if he was right, Yuma dropped it back onto his desk. He just promised Jin he wouldn't activate his Black Trigger as he was still recovering. Other Triggers weren't stated in that promise, but Yuma figured that it was applied to all Triggers. Besides, he didn't need a Trigger right now and he really wasn't in the mood to aggravate his already hurting body.
Since he was over here, Yuma decided to take more of a look around the desk. He didn't see anything else interesting on the desk so he started to open the drawers. Like everything else in the room, though, the drawers were pretty empty too. If Yuma didn't know how he didn't own a lot of a lot of material possessions his whole life, he would be confused about how this was supposed to be his room when it looked so barren.
Sitting at the desk chair, Yuma opened the last drawer right there and finally found something, although he had no idea of what they were. He pulled out the pieces of paper to get a closer look at them.
"O-ko-no-mi-ya-ki Ka-geu-ra?" Yuma read out, nose wrinkling in frustration as he tried to figure out the words. He couldn't even tell if he even read it right. Kanji was so complicated. He was bad with it when Yugo was teaching it to...Ah, damn it. Tachikawa really was an idiot. Yuma could excuse his inability to read Kanji properly by saying he grew up in the Neighborhood and got taught Kanji by his father in their free time. Tachikawa had no excuse to misread Karasuma's name as he was raised in Japan and was taught Kanji his whole life.
Insulting Tachikawa though was not going to help Yuma with this Kanji though nor would it help him understand what the rest of these papers were saying.
Knock. Knock.
Yuma glanced back towards the door, frowning at the interruption. He had escaped into his strange room because he wanted to be alone. He wanted some peace to try to make sense of everything that was going on.
There was another knock at the door, but this time a voice accompanied it. "Yuma-kun? Yuri-san said you were in here. I brought you dinner."
At the mention of food, Yuma stomach grumbled as if to remind him that it was here and even if Yuma's wanted solitude, his stomach still needed substances. Dropping the papers onto his desk, Yuma turned to the door and opened it to see Chika's smiling face with a tray in her hands.
"Sorry to disturb you when you wanted to be alone, but I thought you might be hungry." Chika explained, not yet moving as she didn't want to intrude on Yuma's private space when he clearly escaped the living area because he needed to be alone.
Yuma examined the tray. It held a glass and a plate of..."What is that?"
"Pizza." Chika said. "You loved it the first time you tried it." She pushed the tray forward a bit to try to incentivize Yuma to take it. It seemed to work as Yuma took the tray. With it out of her hands, she pointed to the tiny bottle sitting on the tray. "This is hot sauce. You can add a little bit of it to your pizza to get more spice if you want."
Yuma blinked down at the bottle that Chika pointed out to him. "Hot sauce?"
"You enjoy spicy food and as long as you don't overdo it with the hot sauce, you'll enjoy it on your pizza." Chika explained.
Yuma stared at the food that Chika brought to him. When he looked up, he saw her gentle smile and how she was still standing respectfully in the hall. "Thank you...Chika...chan."
A light laugh escaped Chika. "Just Chika, Yuma-kun. I know you want to be alone so I won't bother you anymore. I just didn't want you to starve." She gave a small wave. "I'll be heading home after dinner so I'll see you tomorrow."
"Good night, Chika." Yuma returned, receiving a small smile shot over Chika's shoulder as she bounded down the stairs. When she was gone from his view, Yuma knocked the door shut with his foot and took his tray of food over to his desk. He set it down and stared at the slices of pizza. He had heard about pizza from his dad, but it wasn't something available to him in the Neighborhood. He wondered if it was as good as his father said it was. His father always spoke so highly of the food of this world.
Yuma picked up the bottle of hot sauce to examine it curiously. Chika said he would like it for the kick of spice it would give his food so with a shrug of his shoulders, he poured some on one of the pieces of pizza before eagerly taking a bite of the pizza.
Almost immediately, Yuma's eyes widened and he dropped the pizza back down on the plate as a cough started to rack his body. Yuma opened his mouth, sticking his tongue out so he could wave it down while reaching for his cup to chug down some of his water to cool down his suddenly burning tongue.
Collapsing back into his desk chair, Yuma take another sip of his water before looking at the pizza again. "Delicious." Uncaring of how it just burned his tongue, Yuma eagerly took a few more bites of his pizza, relishing in the delicious taste and the burn it caused his mouth. It was unlike anything he had gotten to eat before.
Yuma may still be unsure of Japan and this strange world he got brought to, but if all their food tasted like this, he could be convinced to stay around if he could try more of it.
*L*S*A*
"So what?" Konami tapped a finger on the table, glaring at Jin across the table. "You've been missing for the last few days because you were in Galopoula?"
Jin met Konami's glare over his drink. He had been getting glared at a lot in the past few weeks so being quite used to the looks, he just gave an easy smile back at her. "I was. My visions were telling me something was wrong so I needed to go check on Yuma. Finding him as an amnesic was a huge shock."
"Yes, you ran off to Galopoula to see Yuma." Konami repeated, brow twitching in frustration. "What you failed to do was keep us filled in on what was going on!" She smacked the table to help enunciate her point of frustration with Jin just running off. "I told you weeks ago to not keep it all to yourself. I asked you to keep me informed on what you were seeing in your visions so you didn't have to take on all the worry and stress alone, but instead of doing that, you ran off without a word!"
"I did do that." Jin admitted. "I didn't want to cause you any worry about what could be wrong until I could look into it more closely."
"There you go again. Trying to take it all on yourself." Konami scoffed.
"Konami, I was heading to Galopoula. I was going to figure out what my visions were telling me. If I told you what I was doing before I left, you would have been left in worry for days until I got back." Jin explained. He didn't want to cause his fellow Tamakoma agents even more concern by voicing that his side effect was warning him of a problem. He didn't know how long he would be in Galopoula when he left so he didn't want to tell them and make them suffer through the unknown worries for days while he was gone. The concern they had for Yuma's surgery had already been weighing them down for weeks. He wasn't going to add to that.
"And that wasn't your call to make." Konami retorted. "We're your comrades, Jin. You're supposed to trust that we can handle the news. You're supposed to trust us that we can help you!"
"I do trust you. I trust all of you." Jin added, looking around the room so everyone in the room would understand that he was including everyone in that statement. Of everyone in the room, Hyuse was the only one who sent a glare back at Jin's admission which got Jin smiling a bit. Jin and Hyuse would never be friends as there would always be that antagonistic nature between them, but it was fun to deal with. "But even with how much I trust you, I didn't want to burden you with worries any sooner than I had to. When I realized something was off with my visions, but that Yuma was a steady presence in the visions, I knew something happened from the surgery. There was no reason to voice those concerns to you all and make you even more worried than you already were when I realized I would be bringing Yuma back soon. I didn't want you to deal with this knowledge sooner than you had to."
Hyuse scoffed. "Just because of your side effect, you think you can make that call? We were always going to have to deal with this. At least if you talked to us before you left to find Yuma, we could have been more mentally prepared to deal with Yuma. Instead, you blindsided us with this and we didn't know how to react to a Yuma with no memories."
"I didn't know it was amnesia." Jin replied. "Something felt strange in my visions. If I told you something was wrong with Yuma before I left, you would have asked a lot of questions. You would have asked to come with me. You had a Rank War you needed to focus on. I wasn't going to distract you from that."
"Kuga is more important than the Rank Wars." Osamu argued.
Jin smiled back at the captain. "He is. I agree with that, but you know Yuma hates having people worry about him. He wouldn't want to cause you so much concern and distract you from your matches. I understand your feelings on the matter, but Yuma has feelings about it too. From the beginning, he didn't want to cause you worry by telling you about his injuries, but his hand was forced in the Mimic incident. I chose to not tell you anything because when I went to Galopoula, I was going to see what was wrong and if I could figure it out before coming home, you guys wouldn't have to worry about it at all. Unfortunately, I could not do that. It wasn't a problem I could solve in a couple days, so I had to bring him home like this and we all have to help him together."
"There's no point in arguing about this." Reiji interjected quickly when it looked like Hyuse and Konami wanted to continue the argument. "What's done is done. We need to focus on what is in front of us. So, any ideas of how to help Yuma?"
Jin leaned back in his chair, averting his eyes to the ceiling as he thought about that. "His doctor suggested familiar faces and locations. Sadly, he didn't recognize any of us and when we were at HQ earlier, nothing jogged his memory either."
"Any of us?" Karasuma frowned. "Yuma mentioned Izumi-senpai earlier so he met them. I thought you didn't want anyone to know he was back."
Jin grimaced. "I didn't go to the Neighborhood alone."
While Karasuma nodded in understanding, Konami slammed her hands on the table as she stood up. "I knew it! Something had been off the last few days." She swung her head around to look at Chika. "I bet it wasn't just Tachikawa squad either. You said Toma-san had been missing from sniper training."
"Yes." Chika agreed hesitantly as she was unused to Konami's fiery attitude being thrown in her direction. She saw it plenty of times, but it was always directed at other people and she wasn't involved with that conversation.
"So what? You can take the top squads to Galopoula with you, but not us?" Konami demanded.
"I was going to go alone, Konami. Shinoda-san insisted I didn't." Jin replied. "He chose the teams, not me."
"Had you talked to us before and planned this with us, we could have gone with you. It's not like we have anything going on right now." Konami argued.
"And deprive the rest of Tamakoma-2 of their mentors?" Jin countered. "I understand this is all about your concern for Yuma. I'm not faulting that, but Yuma isn't the only person here. There are other people who need your help." Maybe the help Tamakoma-2 needed wasn't as dire as the help Yuma needed, but Jin wasn't going to ignore the fact that they were training Tamakoma-2 to be an A-Rank team in the future. Having Tamakoma-1 take a few days off from training them to check on Yuma wouldn't hurt them, but he didn't want to start a precedent of forgoing training to focus on Yuma.
Konami tsked, but she didn't argue with Jin. She understood where he was going with all of this. They needed to give the same amount of attention to everyone. They couldn't ignore the others to give all their care and attention to one person, especially when that one person would hate all that attention and worry being thrown his way.
"Back to Reiji-kun's original question." Yuri interjected as she had been silent the whole conversation as she tried to get caught up on what was going on. She got enough of an idea through their conversation so far to understand enough. "You can't force memories back. You can show him things he was familiar with before the amnesia to see if it helps, but with amnesia, you should start with giving him time to heal and get used to everyone and everything around him again. Trying to force memories back will only make things worse."
"So, treat everything like normal?" Shiori concluded.
"Well, I'm not sure if we should act like things are completely normal. That would mean ignoring the amnesia, which would be a bad idea." Yuri said. "Don't overreact to the amnesia, but don't act like it's not there either. We have to find a good middle ground of dealing with this."
Konami turned her eyes to the ceiling. Upstairs, hiding in his room, was her cute little student. His return to Japan was supposed to be a joyous occasion that they could celebrate. They had been worried about Yuma's surgery before he had even left for Galopoula yet. As the weeks passed with no word, the worry stayed, but the silence from Galopoula for weeks made her start to think that everything was fine.
No news is good news.
It meant to Konami that after weeks of silence, Galopoula didn't contact them or come to Japan to speak to them because Yuma's surgery had been a success. If the surgery had failed, Galopoula would have spoken up sooner. They kept silent because they were focused on Yuma's recovery.
Even with that thought in her mind, it didn't end Konami's worry completely. Nothing would help her relax until she saw her student and have him back in the base.
Yuma coming home with amnesia hadn't even been a thought in her mind.
She never saw this coming.
And now that she was seeing it, her heart sunk. Yuma's smile wasn't here. He walked into this room with confusion and caution shining in his eyes. Even as they spoke to him and introduced themselves, not even a trace of a smile appeared on his face.
Her Yuma, who had grown from the five years worth of experiences since Yugo's death, had vanished. He was now a child suffering through the grief of his father's death while also dealing with the confusion of what was going on around him.
He had to be so lost right now.
*L*S*A*
"Where have you been, Izumin-senpai?!"
Izumi paused in taking his next bite of spaghetti to look up at the voice that was screaming in his ear. "Volume, Midorikawa." He grumbled, rubbing at his ear. All he wanted was to eat dinner. He was ready to just get home and sleep in his own bed, but he wanted food before heading home and didn't want to make another stop somewhere so he came to the cafeteria in HQ.
It may have been a mistake as Midorikawa and Yoneya had found him.
"You haven't been at HQ for days." Yoneya said, taking a seat in the booth across from Izumi.
Izumi sighed as he realized he was not going to escape his friends as Shun joined them in the booth. "It's summer. I don't want to be here every day when I'm not on defense duty." He replied before shoveling his spaghetti in his mouth to prevent himself from saying anything else.
Jin had asked–ordered–them not to say anything about Yuma being back. Izumi understood why Jin asked that of them, but it didn't mean that Izumi wasn't going to feel horrible about keeping the secret from his friends. All of them had been worried about their friend and his surgery since they left.
Until Izumi got dragged on the away mission the other day, they had all been on the same page of being in the dark on what was going on with Yuma. Now though, Izumi had information about Yuma's wellbeing and he had to keep it a secret from everyone in HQ, from Yuma's friends here.
Keeping secrets was something that was normal for Izumi to do. There were plenty of things that Border kept secret. There were plenty of things that Izumi and other top agents learned and did that they had to keep quiet even among their allies. Secrets that came from going on away missions. Secrets that came from knowing just how many Neighbors were members of Border because of Tamakoma.
Yoneya leaned forward over the table and lowered his voice. "Don't think you can sprout public relations lines at me to distract me, bullet fool. I've been in Border long enough and been involved in enough Border secrets to know when something is being hidden."
Izumi simply stared back as he took another bite of his food, not giving his friend the satisfaction of a verbal response.
"If it was just you taking a few days off, I wouldn't think anything of it, but Tachikawa-san and Kunichika-san were gone too. Fuyushima squad was gone. Kazama squad was gone." Yoneya added, keeping his voice low to not draw attention from anyone around them.
"You paid that much attention?" Izumi said slightly mockingly towards his friend, but inside he was starting to sweat. They had only been gone for a few days. Yes, he knew they all spent a lot of time at headquarters to train and hang out with friends, but he didn't think disappearing for three days without a word to anyone would cause this much suspicion.
"Toma-san was supposed to do the commentary for the Rank Wars on Wednesday, but he didn't show up." Shun explained. "Kobayakawa-chan had to scramble to find a replacement for him by picking an agent out of the crowd to join her and Katagiri-san in the commentary booth."
Izumi silently cursed in his head. He could not believe that Toma forgot that he had accepted a commentator position and that he needed to tell someone he needed to back out at the last minute. "Toma-san's mistakes aren't my problem." He forced out.
"Not saying they are, Izumin-senpai. We're just saying it's weird that you all disappeared at the same time." Shun replied.
Just one less. If one less team went on the away mission, Izumi could more easily pass this off as a coincidence that they were all gone at the same time. Unfortunately, three top teams and Jin being gone all at the same time meant that he couldn't do that. Though, Yoneya and Shun didn't mention Jin at all so it seemed like they didn't know he was gone too. It was easier for Jin to disappear for a few days since he was a Tamakoma agent so he wasn't at HQ every day.
"Fine," Izumi sighed. "You got me. We had a mission." He leveled an annoyed stare at his friends. "And that is all you get from me. The reason we didn't say anything and just disappeared was because it was a secret mission. I can't just go talking about it just because we finished the mission."
Yoneya just gave him a confused, suspicious look. It wasn't too odd to have a mission, but they were Border agents. Their missions weren't easy to hide if it was a big Neighbor attack. It wasn't easy, but it was possible. It was like when they had a mission with the top three teams to go after Yuma back in December. They were able to keep that on the downlow, but that mission once it got going took one night. They didn't disappear from Border for days.
Well, Yoneya and Kodera had to disappear from HQ for a few days to spy on Yuma, but they only did it during the day. Once Yuma went home from Tamakoma back when he didn't live there, they finished their spying for the day and went home.
However, it only took two of them to do that. Three A-Rank squads disappearing for a few days with nothing weird happening was weird. On top of that, none of them had been answering their phones.
The only thing that Yoneya could guess was that this 'secret mission' wasn't in Japan.
"That just makes me more curious about what you were doing." Shun said.
"Deal with it, Midorikawa." Izumi replied. "Just because you're A-Rank, it doesn't mean you're privy to all of Border's secrets."
Shun whined, but didn't ask any more questions about what Izumi had been doing the last few days. "Fine, fine. You got to do a fun, secret mission. It's been pretty boring here."
"Then get out of HQ and go do something that has nothing to do with work." Izumi replied. That was definitely what Izumi needed right now. Maybe that would be what he would do tomorrow. It was a Saturday. He could enjoy actually having a day off and relaxing now that the mission to check on Galopoula and bring Yuma home was done.
"I haven't mastered the curving blade yet."
Yoneya snorted. "Yeah, he only decapitated himself seventy percent of the times he tried today."
Shun shot his friend a glare. "It wasn't nearly that much. I'm getting better at it. I can't wait to show Yuma-senpai when he comes home."
Izumi quickly ducked his head the moment Yuma's name came out. He made a show of taking another bite of his food when in actuality, he was just trying to hide any expression that may cross his face at the mention of Yuma returning home. When Yoneya and Shun began the conversation asking about where he had been, he was worried they would question that he went to the Neighborhood to see Yuma. If anything else had been going on right now, he wouldn't have been worried about that coming up, but since Yuma and his health issues were the only thing currently going right now, he was worried that thought would cross their minds.
Still, just bringing up talking about Yuma coming home was enough to make him feel horrible. They were worried about their friend. They had been worried since they learned of the low risks of his surgery, but they had to move on and focus on other things. They couldn't sit around every day and wonder when Yuma would come home.
That would definitely be a waste of their summer vacation.
They had moved on to focus on other things, but they didn't forget that they were waiting for Yuma to return from his surgery.
"Show him what? That your fail rate matches your loss rate when you fight Kuga." Yoneya teased.
Shun groaned loudly at the reminder. "Like you do any better." He countered.
Listening to his friends arguing about their fail rates, Izumi turned his eyes away to watch the agents moving around through the cafeteria. He wondered if they would be mad when they found out Yuma was back in Japan and Izumi sat here with this knowledge without a word to them or if they could understand why they kept quiet when they learned about his amnesia.
Or maybe they would feel both.
They were likely going to be mad and upset that they were left in the dark about Yuma's return and his new health issues after they had been worrying for weeks about what was going on.