Light Shines Anew
Chapter 27: Pain Doesn't Lie
Something was off.
Konami had been aware of that fact for a few days now. She already knew what the issue was too. Jin had taken off somewhere a few days ago and wasn't answering his phone. In fact, her calls weren't even going through. Normally she wouldn't think anything of not seeing Jin for a bit, but he lived at Tamakoma. Since it was summer, she was spending more time at Tamakoma to train and taking on more defense duty missions.
It wasn't like she expected to see Jin every time she came to Tamakoma, but it had been days and she hadn't even seen him in passing. He hadn't even appeared in the corner of her eyes as he walked through the building.
It was really weird.
And it was the reason why she was currently stalking through Tamakoma and looking into every room. She checked the training room. She checked the kitchen. She checked Rindo's office. She checked Jin's room. She even checked Yuma's room.
Nothing.
She checked the roof.
She checked Jin's favorite private spot on the broken steps outside.
It was possible that he simply wasn't in the building right now. He could have gone to headquarters to train today. He had been doing that a lot more recently after all.
Konami made her way back to the kitchen with a frown to found Karasuma making lunch. "Have you seen Jin lately?"
"Not today." Karasuma said, not looking up from his skillet as he dumped the vegetables into it.
"What about yesterday? Or the day before?" Konami asked, scanning the room for any sign of life that wasn't her or Karasuma, but no one else was up here. That wasn't too surprising. Osamu and his team were down in the training room with Reiji helping them. Rindo had left earlier for a meeting at HQ. Yuri and Yotaro were around here somewhere too.
"I haven't noticed. I've been busy with my part time and helping Osamu train." Karasuma admitted as he put a lid on the skillet and turned away from the stove to give Konami his attention. "Why are you asking? Do you need him for something?"
"My calls and texts aren't going through to him. I think his phone is out of service and I haven't seen him in the base in days." Konami turned a pair of sharp, suspicious eyes to Karasuma. "It's weird for someone who lives here to not be seen for days."
Karasuma shrugged. "I get what you're saying, but it is Jin-san. He can handle himself and if something is wrong, he would call for help."
Konami frowned, eyes narrowing at her teammate as she studied him as if she thought he was keeping something more from her. It was always so hard to tell with him with how he constantly lied to her. After a moment, she sighed and looked away from her friend when she determined the expression on his face was genuine honesty and curiosity about the situation. "With Jin, who can even tell? He keeps so many secrets and doesn't tell us anything. He always just puts us in the path of an enemy and expects us to be able to handle it."
"What's wrong with that? It shows how much he trusts us to win." Karasuma replied.
"It would be nice to have all the information for once." Konami complained. Jin often times didn't fill them in to what was going on until after the fight was over. That would be when he decided to answer all their questions. It was annoying to be in the dark of what was going on in the middle of an attack. It was why she felt so blindsided by Yuma's situation when it was revealed to them during the Mimics incident. It felt like it had just come out of nowhere with how the reveal hit them.
Karasuma turned back to the stove, not replying. There was a reason why Jin left them in the dark. He filled some people into what was going on or what he needed them to do while leaving other people in the dark. He had the feeling the reasoning behind it was Jin was worried about them going against his orders. Emotions constantly messed things up. If they knew something was going to happen, they might move against what Jin needed from them and make his manipulation of the battlefield all useless by the end.
At the same time, Karasuma knew that they could act against what Jin thought and make the future better. Jin was good, but even with his side effect, he wasn't perfect or all knowing. Karasuma felt like he proved that to Jin during Aftokrator's invasion when he demanded his future from Jin beforehand and it changed how he decided to act during the battle.
They trusted Jin without knowing everything and he trusted them to get the job done.
On the other hand, Karasuma did understand where Konami's complaint from. He felt like he proved in the Aftokrator invasion that they could be trusted to know the future and still make the correct choice that wasn't ruled by emotion.
"You really think he is up to something?" Karasuma asked.
"He's always up to something."
Karasuma hummed softly. "Have you asked Rindo-san? He should know what Jin-san is up to."
"He just said Jin had something to take care of and to not worry." Konami smacked the counter, feeling her annoyance rise. "They always do this. I get why they keep things from HQ, but we're all members of Tamakoma! We should be on the same page."
Karasuma couldn't help but snort which got him a glare from Konami, who did not find anything about this situation to be funny. "Come on, Konami-senpai. Can't you hear how you sound right now? Yotaro complains the same way when we keep information from him."
In response to that, Konami whacked her teammate's arm and moved away to go around the breakfast counter and sit on one of the stools. "The difference is that Yotaro is a child under our protection and we are agents. It's only natural we should know what is going on." She tapped a finger on the counter, staring off to the side with a frown.
"You know, Osamu went to train with Izumi-senpai yesterday, but he only found Yuiga, who said no one else from the team was available." Karasuma said, turning away from the stove after checking on his food. He went over to the counter and leaned his arms down on it. "I just assumed they were busy and Izumi-senpai forgot to tell Osamu they couldn't train yesterday."
Konami shifted her eyes back to Karasuma, feeling suspicion begin to outweigh her annoyance at being constantly left in the dark by Jin. Jin and the majority of Tachikawa squad just disappeared at the same time?
"And Chika said her friend, Natsume, said Toma-san was missing from sniper practice because he usually gives her extra lessons at the end of joint training." Karasuma said, recalling the conversation from Chika and Osamu when they returned to base for dinner yesterday.
Konami snapped to her feet, slamming her hands down on the counter. "You can't tell me this is all just a coincidence?! They are up to something! Why didn't Jin talk to us?"
Karasuma turned away from the counter to grab a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water. When he turned back to Konami, he held the glass out towards her. "Calm down, Konami-senpai. I get you're upset, but there's nothing we can do since we don't know where they went or what they are doing. We're going to have to wait for Jin-san to get back."
Konami snatched the glass from Karasuma and gulped half of it down in a couple sips. What Karasuma said made sense. It was just frustrating how Jin just disappeared without a word to any of them. She knew he liked to scheme things behind the scenes, but he had never just up and left for a few days without telling them anything. She got that Rindo knew, but it would be nice if Jin would trust them with what he was working on as well.
*L*S*A*
A groan was the first thing that Yuma was aware of when he came back to awareness. He knew it wasn't from him since the sound came from across the room. Despite that, Yuma wasn't going to give it his attention just yet as he took the time to evaluate himself. The second thing he became aware of was something cool and wet on his forehead. Next, he became aware of the fact that he was lying on something soft, much softer than the hospital bed he had been stuck in for a couple weeks. It was so soft that he just wanted to turn over and curl up under his blanket, but he didn't do that.
He needed to know where he was.
Yuma pushed himself up, letting the wet cloth fall into his lap. He rubbed at his eye while cracking the other open to take a look around the room he was in. It seemed to be a very simple room with just two beds in it and two nightstands between the beds with a lamp on each one. Only one of the lamps was on which was the one near the other bed while a bowl of water sat on the nightstand next to Yuma's bed.
Yuma took the cloth off his lap and threw it in the bowl and twisted around on the bed to drag his feet out from under the covers to throw them over the edge of the bed. He stared at the other bed to see Fuyushima lying there with an arm thrown over the top half of his face. As he stared at Fuyushima another moan escaped him.
Climbing to his feet, he made his way over to the other bed and stared down at Fuyushima with a frown. "Is lying down really going to help you?"
Fuyushima grunted in surprise at the voice. He lifted his arm a bit to look over at Yuma with one eye. "You really are like a ninja." He muttered, feeling a smile quirk at his lips when Yuma's expression twisted into one of confusion. As amused as he was at Yuma's confusion, he didn't feel well enough to explain ninjas to him.
"Are you okay?" Yuma asked, ignoring the ninja comment for now.
"Just sea sickness. Don't handle the motion of the ship well."
Yuma's brows furrowed and he looked down at his feet as if only just realizing they were on the away ship. It had been such a huge part of his life as he traveled from nation to nation with his father that he didn't even notice the movement of the ship anymore. On the opposite side, it seemed that Fuyushima did not feel the same away about the movement of the ship.
"Well, that sucks." Yuma replied.
Fuyushima snorted and shifted his arm back down over his eye. "You're not very good at comforting people, are you?"
Yuma blinked a few times, unsure of how to respond to that so he just didn't.
Fuyushima pointed towards the door with his free hand. "You can go out to the bridge if you feel better."
"I was never sick. I just fell asleep." Yuma muttered.
Fuyushima snorted. "Jin said you had a fever. You overexerted yourself."
Yuma huffed back. Jin felt like the type of person to be overly concerned with his wellbeing. The thing was, Yuma couldn't tell if that was just who Jin was naturally as a person or if it was because he was worried about someone he saw as a friend losing his memories. Yuma wasn't yet sure of how he felt about these Border agents. He understood they were here to bring their comrade, which was him, back to Border and they claimed they were his friends, but Yuma wasn't going to let that sway his opinion.
Stepping away from the bed, Yuma stretched his arms above his head while cracking his neck. His muscles still ached from the walk earlier, but he didn't feel like he was going to fall over if he took a few steps. He didn't know how long he slept for, but the rest did help somewhat. At least, he was able to stand now which was already a win for Yuma.
"I feel fine now." Yuma decided, dropping his arms down to his sides and walking towards the room's door. "I think I'll go take a walk."
"Turn right!" Fuyushima called when he heard the door open.
"Right. Understood."
Jin balanced his ankle on his knee, tilting his head back to stare up at the ceiling. He could feel it in his bone, could see it coming in his future, Konami was going to be coming for his head. He wished he could feel surprised by that, but he did just leave Japan to go to Galopoula without a single word to anyone, except Rindo, in Tamakoma. Normally, Jin would just shove Yuma into her arms and that would easily calm her rage when she realized that Jin went to pick him up.
Normally.
Shoving an amnesic Yuma at an angry Konami would end with a confused, worried Konami and an angry, distrustful Yuma glaring at him for using him as a shield. It would be a bad time for everyone involved. He was going to have to find a new way to calm her down when they made it back to Tamakoma branch.
"Bullshit!"
Jin's head snapped up at the loud yell. He sat up straight and looked over at Tachikawa, who was paying Jin no mind as he was invested in his game of Bullshit with Toma, Izumi, Kunichika, and Maki.
"You really want to go down that route?" Toma countered, smirking confidentially, eyes locked with Tachikawa's.
"Yes, I do. There is no way you could have played three sevens." Tachikawa retorted.
Toma raised a brow, still carrying that same smirk.
"Unless someone lied in the first round about how many sevens they played." Maki pointed out, staring across the table at Kunichika, who was just smiling in amusement.
Jin snorted and shifted his attention away from their game. He was banned from their game because they thought his side effect would lead him to victory, which based on the first round they played together earlier, they might not be wrong in that assumption. It was hilarious though.
Kikuchihara had long abandoned the room with the claim that they were being too loud in their game which left Kazama, Utagawa, and Mikami with Jin sitting out of the game in the room.
"Are you done daydreaming over there?" Kazama asked.
"I wasn't daydreaming. I was thinking." Jin replied.
"Hopefully, it was your cover story for Kuga's miraculous recovery from his health issues and his new health issue that replaced the old health issue." Kazama said dryly.
Jin just grinned back. "Nope. Not at all." He replied, knowing it would get Kazama to glare at him.
"Get a plan. I will not be dragged into another one of your schemes." Kazama growled.
"Not everything I do is a scheme."
Kazama scoffed, not believing him for a second.
"The lack of faith stings." Jin cried out in despair, grabbing his heart as if he had been stabbed by the betrayal.
"Do you normally tell such stupid lies?"
Jin choked on air before twisting in his seat to see Yuma had come in behind him. "Good to see you back on your feet, Yuma. Do you feel better after your nap?"
"Fine." Yuma dragged his eyes off Jin to examine the room, eyes stopping briefly on each of the girls in the room as he hadn't met them in the hospital. They looked vaguely familiar, but Yuma was getting used to realizing that was just because they were in the pictures in his phone. His brows furrowed as he looked at them. They were all wearing the same outfit which sucked as it meant they didn't have their team emblem's on their outfits. "Which one is Kunichika-san?"
"Hmm? Me!" Kunichika raised a hand in the air, briefly looking up from her card game. "Can I help you with something, Kuga?"
"Wait a damn minute!" Tachikawa threw his cards down on the table so he could twist around in his seat and glare at Yuma. "Why does she get a honorific when the rest of us don't?"
"Izumi-san threatened death on my life if I didn't respect her." Yuma replied.
It was Izumi's turn to choke on air when every pair of eyes in the room turned judging stares on him. "That is not what I said!"
"It was implied."
"Implied?" Izumi repeated, trying to trace back what he said to Yuma yesterday in regards to his operator. He didn't think he had put any threat into the conversation. Surely if he had, Yuma would have acted more aggressively to the conversation then he did. He didn't think Yuma was one to take threats so calmly as to not even acknowledge them in the moment. "I'm trying to get you used to honorifics over here so you'll start to use them!"
"If you're going to threaten Chibi to use them, you should have told him to use them with the whole team." Tachikawa complained.
"Get him to attach san to your name on your own time." Izumi retorted.
"Fine." Tachikawa very aggressively pointed at the empty seat next to him. "Get over here, Chibi. I'll drill honorifics into your head again."
Yuma stared at him for a moment and continued to stare at him as he very pointedly sat down in the other empty seat that was by Kazama. In response, Kazama felt a tired sigh escaped him. He should have escaped this room with Kikuchihara a long time ago.
"What do you have against showing respect to your elders?" Tachikawa demanded.
"You're very loud." Yuma replied.
"He's also an idiot. Ignore him." Kazama advised.
"Don't insult my name to him. He'll believe you!"
Yuma wondered about that. His side effect didn't go off so Kazama really considered him an idiot, but it didn't seem quite right. From Yuma's interactions with him yesterday, Tachikawa seemed to act like bit of an idiot, but he didn't seem fully incompetent like some people Yuma had met in his life. Maybe it was just a different level of stupid.
Yuma turned to look at the person next to you. "Who are you anyway? You're wearing the same uniform as Utagawa."
"Kazama Soya."
"He's my captain." Utagawa added when his Kazama didn't offer any more information. He then pointed over towards Mikami. "That's Mikami Kaho. She is our operator."
Mikami looked up from her computer to shoot a smile at Yuma. "Glad to have you back, Kuga. You slept for a while so we're already nearing Japan. I hope you're ready to get back home."
Yuma stared at her for a moment. "Mikami-san?" He asked confused, ignoring the way Tachikawa slammed a fist into the table in frustration.
Mikami laughed lightly. "You called me Mikami-kun in the past, but if you want to use san, I won't stop you."
Yuma tilted his head in confused as he stared at him. "Wouldn't chan suit you more? I thought chan was used more for people who are cute?" At least that's what he thought Izumi and Tachikawa had said yesterday. Honorifics were so confusing. The whole Japanese language was confusing honestly.
Something hit the table underneath as the table shook violently which made Yuma look away from Mikami in confusion at the rough action. Since he looked away, he missed Mikami's blush at the compliment and instead saw Jin hunched over, covering his mouth to hide his laugh while Tachikawa looked ready to throw hands for some reason and was being pushed away from the table by Toma and Izumi.
"Wait! Am I not cute?" Kunichika demanded, pointing at herself. "You went for san immediately with me."
"Izumi-san threatened bodily harm if respect wasn't given." Yuma explained.
"I did not!" Izumi shouted from the other side of the room as he struggled to keep his captain away from the table.
Kunichika seemed to accept Yuma's response and settled back down to enjoy the show. Someone had to enjoy it since Kazama looked like he was in hell right now.
"Chan is for younger girls or girls you are close friends with." Mikami corrected, fighting down her blush at Yuma's innocent compliment. It was nice to get a sweet compliment from someone who just meant it as that. "You can use it for older girls that you are close with, but for me, you should either not use a honorific or use kun or san."
Yuma nodded. He still looked confused at the idea of honorifics, but accepted her explanation on chan. This was going to make things so complicated. Based on what he understood from everyone and the amount of pictures in his phone, he knew a lot of people in Japan.
Tachikawa was annoyed at Yuma's lack of honorifics, but he had reasons for not using them. It was too much to try to learn everyone's name, remember those names, and then figure out what honorific he used for them and remember to use it. Just using their name was all he wanted to do right now. He didn't need more stuff getting all tangled up in his head.
"And...?" Yuma glanced over to the last operator in the room.
Maki supposed their card game had been abandoned so she was in the process of cleaning up the cards with Kunichika. "Maki Risa. I'm the operator of Fuyushima squad. Call me Maki."
"Maki-san?" Yuma tested out.
"Seriously? Why are they all getting honorifics?" Tachikawa demanded.
"Izumi-san threatened pain!" Yuma called back. He was in enough pain from the surgery and still didn't have his Trigger back. Izumi was going to win this one.
"That was only with my operator, but do what you want, Kuga!" Izumi said. "And I didn't threaten bodily injury! Stop saying that!"
Thump.
Yuma looked towards the sound, but all he saw was an empty chair. He pushed himself to his feet to lean over the table to find Jin just dying on the floor from lack of air.
"Maki-san is fine, Kuga." Risa said as they both chose to ignore Tachikawa squad's interruptions.
"Right." Yuma dropped back down into his seat. These people were so strange. They didn't seem like the soldiers he had interacted with in the past with how energetic and lively they were, but he was finding it all very amusing. They were quite funny. Well, most of them. When he looked at the captain sitting next to him, Kazama just had his eyes closed and arms crossed. He looked like someone who had just given up on everything. "Are you okay, Kazama?"
"Kazama-san." Kazama corrected, but didn't press Yuma to repeat it. He would get it in his head eventually. "And I'm just counting down how much longer until we can be back in Japan. I need to get back on defense duty."
"Aren't there other people to do that?" Yuma wondered.
"I need to chop something in half." Kazama could only stand to be around Jin and Tachikawa as a pair for so long. He needed some peace and quiet to recover from them before he would dare hang out with them again. Or alcohol. A drink would do wonders for him at this point.
A hand came up from the floor and latched onto the table so Jin could use it as leverage to pull himself up at least to his knees so he could look over it at Yuma. "Don't let Kazama-san fool you, Yuma. He does stupid stuff too. He just puts on this image of a poise and proper agent because no one can know of the things he's done to damage his image."
"You have ten seconds to shut up before I drag you into a training booth when we get back." Kazama threatened.
Jin's grin shifted into a smirk. "Well, as much fun as that sounds, Kazama-san, like I told Tachikawa-san the other day, I'm going to be busy for a while. I need to get Yuma settled in at Tamakoma."
"That takes like an hour!" Tachikawa seemed to have broken free of Toma and Izumi because he was slamming a hand on the table next to Jin. "We need to fight again so I can take back my number one spot!"
"In case you haven't realized, Tachikawa-san, the number one Attacker title is attached to me right now so it's my title." Jin corrected as he pushed himself to his feet to meet Tachikawa's challenging stare head on. "It will only be considered yours once more if you can get more points than me again."
"I would gladly do that if you weren't running from the fight!"
"I'm busy. The power elite is very much in demand everywhere."
"Everywhere? You abandoned that everywhere in Japan when you decided to go pick up Kuga in Galopoula!"
"Galopoula can be considered part of the everywhere. They are our allies."
"And besides taking Kuga back to Tamakoma, what else do you really have to do? Leave him in the hands of his team!"
"Did you forget already? Yuma has amnesia. I'm trying to figure out how to jog his memory."
"How did I get dragged into this?" Yuma asked, though he was quite amused at watching the two as his eyes ping ponged between them.
"They are always like this. It's just part of their rivalry." Utagawa replied. "When you get back to Tamakoma, you should ask Usami-senpai to show you footage of their rank wars. I'm sure you'll love watching them."
"Rank...wars...?" Yuma said confused.
"Training matches between agents. There are solo rank wars and team rank wars. The B-Rank Wars are taking place right now actually." Mikami explained. "It's training, but also a way to rack up points to help you rise up in the ranks."
Yuma stared at her, frowning. "What's the point?" He muttered confused. Tachikawa and Izumi had mentioned something like that yesterday in regards to their team being A-Rank number one.
"To rise up in rank." Kazama repeated what his operator said.
"Why? Just training is needed to make yourself stronger. Who cares if you're number one or not?" Yuma asked.
"Pride." Tachikawa broke away from his argument with Jin to round on Yuma. "It shows how you are better than the rest."
Yuma seemed unimpressed with that answer as he leveled bored eyes at Tachikawa.
"Yeah, that tracks." Jin said. "Yuma actually doesn't care what his rank is. He only raced through the team ranks out of fun and to get on the away mission. The actual number doesn't actually mean anything to him."
"Are you serious?" Tachikawa demanded. "Don't you want to be known as an elite among elites?"
"I don't know about things like A-Rank." Yuma said, completely unimpressed.
The girl glared at him, face flushed red. She pulled back her anger and crossed her arms. "Then please remember this. The A-Ranks agents are the top five percent of all Border agents. They're elites among elites!"
"E...lite...?"
"E...lite...?" Yuma grabbed his suddenly pounding head, pressing his hands into his ears as that angry girl's voice echoed in his head.
"Hey! Yuma, what's wrong?"
Yuma didn't acknowledge the voice as he was too busy scrunching his eyes shut as he tried to will that condescending voice out of his head.
"Great, you broke Kuga. Good job, Tachikawa-san." Izumi said, staring at Yuma with a frown as he hunched over in his seat.
"Me?" Tachikawa said insulted. "We were talking about rank wars! There is no reason for that to break Kuga!"
Kazama quickly exited his seat as Jin rounded the table and took it to be next to Yuma. He was not equipped to be the one helping Yuma with his broken self. Jin was the resident expert on things involving Yuma and anything Neighbor related after all.
"Hey, Yuma," Jin said softly, leaning down so he could try to see Yuma's face as he was hunched over in his seat. "Are you in pain? Are your limbs hurting you? Your doctor gave me some medicine."
Yuma dragged a hand off of his ears to shove it in Jin's face. "Too many questions." He mumbled. His head was already pounding. He didn't need a bunch of questions swirling in his head as well. "Who is the arrogant girl?"
"Arrogant girl?" Jin repeated confused, brows furrowed as he tried to figure out where Yuma's mind was at. He looked at the operators but he didn't think Yuma was referring to them. They had been nothing but polite to him and he already knew their names as they introduced themselves. "Can you give me more than that?"
"She told me about A-Rank. She seemed excessively proud of it."
Oh, a memory.
A sense of relief hit Jin at that. A memory had returned to Yuma. He couldn't make any sense of it and it was causing him a headache, and Jin felt bad for Yuma, but he felt more relief than anything else in this moment. If a memory had returned to Yuma from whatever Tachikawa said then it meant they could get Yuma his memories back. They just needed to jog his memory like they thought.
"If it was someone who was excessively proud of A-Rank, they had to be in it and there aren't many girl agents in A-Rank." Toma said.
"The most likely person to come to my mind would be Kitora Ai." Izumi added. She was one of the most arrogant agents, but it came from a place of knowing her skill and being able to back it up. It didn't make it any less annoying to deal with though. "I think I saw a picture of her team in your phone yesterday. Pull it out."
Yuma did as Izumi asked, but he didn't open it. He just tossed it across the table to let the sniper deal with it so he could instead focus on massaging his aching head. If his head was going to hurt like this from memories returning, Yuma would have preferred to stay in the room with Fuyushima and kept resting instead of coming out here and getting a headache.
Did he really need the memories if they were just going to cause his head to pound like this?
"Here."
Yuma cracked his eyes opened to see a glass of water being held out to him by Utagawa. He took it with a gracious smile, but instead of drinking it right away, he held the cool glass to his forehead, relishing in the coolness with the hope that it would ease his headache.
A phone suddenly appeared in his vision. It was of a team that was dressed in red. Three boys and a girl.
"Her." Izumi pointed at the girl in the photo.
She looked like the type to have a condescending voice, but...
"I don't know." Yuma admitted, eyes sliding shut again. "It was blurry. Her voice stuck out more than anything else."
"It's alright. It was just a flash of a memory it seems." Jin said. "Tachikawa-san probably just caused something to trip in your memories."
Yuma didn't have those memories though. They were gone, but maybe not really gone? Tachikawa hit a nerve with the memory and that caused something to flash in his mind. Was it more like the memories were there but just locked behind a door and Tachikawa reminded him of something? And then that something tried to punch its way out of the door?
Yuma didn't like that.
His head was pounding just from one memory trying to escape and return to him.
What would it be like when the door actually broke down?
"Am I being blamed for this?" Tachikawa asked, pointing at himself in disbelief.
"It was your fault." Maki said.
"I thought we wanted Kuga to get his memories back!"
"Yes, but without making him collapse."
So noisy.
Border agents were so noisy.
But, they were amusing.
And real.
Yuma stared at his phone that Izumi had put on the table in front of him. It was hard to tell from a blurry memory if the girl in his memory was the same girl in the picture, but it felt real. The memory felt real.
Maybe that was just the pain talking.
Pain made things feel real.
Pain.
Pain.
When there was pain, Yuma knew he was facing reality and what was happening couldn't go away. It wouldn't go away. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't shield his eyes from the truth. Even more so now that his father's side effect had been so twisted into his DNA that even after getting his real body back, it still existed in him.
The pain that felt so fresh in his mind.
The pain that came from having those claws dig into his skin was real.
His dad appearing in front of him and taking the pain away was real.
The realization that his disobedience caused everything was real.
He was here with no memories of five years that passed and the remembrance of pain that happened five years ago feeling so fresh in his mind because he made the mistake of thinking he knew better than his father.
He didn't want any of it to be real.
He didn't want to believe it.
But, pain didn't lie.
Yuma knew everything he was being told was the truth. While his memories of what happened after his father saved him were gone, the evidence he was shown and told was all true and even if he couldn't remember it or how it fit into the blank puzzle in his head, he knew it did.
Oyaji's lie detector side effect was really saving him here.
The side effect plus the pain told Yuma all he needed.
Mikami was distracted from making sure Yuma was okay when she got an alert from her computer. "Jin-san, we're in range of Earth. We can open the Gate whenever we're ready." She said.
Jin looked up from Yuma to look over at her over Yuma's head. "Right, just give me a minute before we do that." He leaned down again to look at Yuma's face, studying his friend's face closely. He still looked to be in discomfort, but not as much pain as when he first groaned in pain and hunched over when the memory first hit him. "You ready to see Japan for the first time all over again, Yuma?"
Yuma grunted in reply. It's not like he had much choice in this. He didn't exactly have anywhere else to go and Replica was here so he was just ready to get this over with.
"Good, good." Jin ruffled Yuma's hair without much thought of the action and looked up at his comrades. "One more thing, and this is for everyone. Can you not mention that Yuma is back in Japan?"
"Going to push everyone else out too?" Izumi asked.
Jin shrugged. "If it wasn't for the amnesia, I would welcome the chance for them to see their friend again. However, since Yuma has amnesia, I don't want to overwhelm him with all his friends wanting to see him. I'm just going to take him back to Tamakoma right now and get him settled."
"I thought the idea was to get him used to familiar locations and people to try to jog his memories." Utagawa said confused.
"Yes, but not all at once." Jin jerked a thumb at Yuma. "I'm worried too much at once might either overwhelm him with his amnesia or if he does get memories back, I don't want him to get flooded with them all at once if they are going to give him a headache. For now, I'm going to see how we can help him at Tamakoma and I would rather not have a bunch of agents showing up at our door, so, don't tell anyone he is back."
"Fine, we have the easy part anyway." Tachikawa replied.
"And what's that mean?" Jin asked.
"You're the one who wants to keep his return a secret so you can deal with the hassle of getting him out of HQ without anyone seeing you."
"You really think I can't do it? Have you forgotten what my side effect is?"
"You're really going to use that to sneak around your own base?"
"I've used it for worse."
"And that is something to be proud of?"
"Are they always like this?" Yuma muttered before gulping down the water that Utagawa gave him.
"No, they usually aren't this bad with the arguing." Kazama replied. "They usually jump real fast into the training booths and attempt to kill each other."
Yuma eyed Kazama out of the corner of his eye, brow quirked in shock at how unconcerned he was about what he said. It was just training in Trion bodies so they weren't actually killing each other, but it was still surprising to Yuma to see how eager these comrades were to compete with each other in combat. It really made no sense to him. Whenever he trained with his father, it was always serious as Yugo had been focused on teaching him how to not get killed. There were no jokes and no fun to be had as Yugo drilled the lessons into his head.
"Mikami, ignore those two idiots and take us in." Kazama ordered. Jin and Tachikawa could fall on their faces as the away ship landed for all he cared. If they wanted to get distracted with an argument, they could suffer the consequences.
"On it, Kazama-san." Mikami replied as Kunichika and Maki settled in at their computers to help her along with the process.
*L*S*A*
Shinoda found himself leaning against a wall, staring upwards as he waited. They got the message a few hours ago that their agents would be returning soon as they had left Galopoula. Based on their calculations, the away ship should be arriving anytime now which was why Shinoda found himself waiting out in the hangar for their arrival.
From the message they received from the away ship, everything went well in Galopoula and they were returning home with Yuma with them. It was a pretty simple message, and yet, Shinoda couldn't shake this gut feeling that something was wrong. It was too easy for the amount of concern Jin had about Yuma and why he wanted to head to Galopoula.
Only a few days had passed since Jin and the others headed to Galopoula. Shinoda knew they determined it would be a short mission as it was just to check on things in Galopoula and see how Yuma was doing after his surgery. They were returning home, but didn't explain what caused Jin concern in the message they sent HQ.
That meant that either Jin's concerns were unfounded and everything turned out to be fine. Or, it meant that they didn't want to discuss it in a transferred message. They were waiting to discuss it in person. It had Shinoda standing with his thoughts swirling around as he tried to figure out what it was that Jin found in Galopoula.
"You look like you're stressing yourself out with worry over there." Rindo said.
Shinoda eyed his friend from the corner of his eyes. A huff of air escaped him in disbelief at what he found on his friend's face. "I don't think you're one to talk, Rindo."
Rindo shot him a wry smirk. "Well, this does involve a Kuga and as we learned, sending a Kuga into the Neighborhood alone is just asking for trouble. It's probably a good thing you didn't let Jin go alone. He would probably manage to find trouble like Yuma and Kuga-san managed to do."
Shinoda snorted. Jin's side effect was amazing and he learned to use it to his full advantage to protect their future. For as powerful as it was though, that didn't mean Jin could predict everything or that he could win every time just because he knew the future. "They're going to cause my blood pressure to spike." He shot a mock glare at Rindo. "All of Tamakoma is going to do this to me."
"Don't be like that. We keep things interesting around here."
"Too interesting. It would be nice to have a break after everything that happened this year." Shinoda sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. After they completed the away mission in Aftokrator and returned to Japan, he had assumed that things would finally be settling down. They had formed a tentative non-aggression pact with Aftokrator to keep either side from engaging in retaliation and were forming an alliance with Galopoula. Things should have calmed down and for the most part they had. There had been no large invasions since they returned to the Japan. What was left for them to deal with, though, was the stress of Yuma's health issues.
"Once the team returns, things should settle down. I doubt we will need to go back into the Neighborhood for anything else until the next away mission." Rindo said.
Shinoda snorted. He would like to believe that, but this was Rindo, the director of the Tamakoma branch. His branch just kept throwing more and more curveballs at him. Whenever he began to relax and let his guard down, he would walk into his office, see that Rindo had invaded his personal space once more, and think about just turning right back around and pretending he didn't see Rindo or the new level of stress he brought to give to Shinoda.
"I should demand compensation for all the stress you give me in the form of a brand new coffee maker." Shinoda smirked. "Maybe one like the one Yugo-san bought Kido-san and Mogami-san years ago." That coffee machine really did make the best coffee. It was a shame that Kido took it from Tamakoma and stored it in his office, allowing no one else to use it.
Rindo scoffed. "You signed up to deal with the daily stress the agents bring you."
"So what? I don't deserve a coffee machine in my office because of that?" Shinoda retorted.
"Do you see a coffee machine in my office?"
"All you have to do is walk downstairs to get yourself coffee. If I want a good cup of coffee, I have to walk all the way to the cafeteria. A coffee machine in my office would do wonders for me."
"Then buy one."
"If I buy it, how are you going to pay me back for all this stress?"
"Who is going to compensate me for my stress?"
"You signed up for the daily stress by taking charge of Tamakoma." Shinoda mocked back, earning him a mock glare from his friend.
"If you two are done." Kinuta grunted, drawing the attention of the two directors to him. He was standing by one of his engineers who was sitting at the computer. "Maki has sent a message saying they are going to open the Gate and land now."
"Don't let us stop you, Kinuta-san." Rindo said, but he did cut the conversation with Shinoda off and stood up straight. It had only been a few days since Jin and the A-Ranks left to go to Galopoula, but those days had felt long as they wondered just what had been going on in Galopoula. It would be a relief to finally put the stress of Yuma's surgery behind them. He knew that Yuma's health issues weren't going to be magically fixed just because he had a surgery. There would still be his recovery since Rindo doubted Yuma was fully recovered from such an intensive surgery right now. It would just be a relief to have him back in Japan where they could keep an eye on him.
The Gate opened above the group to allow the away ship to travel through. Rindo brought a hand up to his forehead to block the wind from the ship arrival as it brought a big gust of wind with it and he wanted to keep his hair out of his face.
As he watched the ship land, Rindo couldn't help but smile as he thought about how different things had become since December of last year. Back then, when the away ship landed, three A-Rank teams walked out of it and teamed up with another A-Rank team to try to attack Yuma, but Jin stood in their path and stopped them. Now, it was the opposite.
Those three teams had joined Jin in going to the Neighborhood to pick up the Neighbor child that had once been their target. It had only been a few months since then, but it was amazing at how fast things could change. Maybe the opinion on Neighbors hadn't radically changed in those months, but having Tamakoma invite Neighbors into Border and having the agents interact with them could help things along. It was a shame that the agents didn't know that they were interacting with Neighbors and saw how similar they were to them.
Maybe one day they could reach that point, but for now, Rindo knew keeping his Neighbor members a secret was a top priority. Although, with how people kept learning of Yuma's secret, either from being smart enough to put the pieces together or because Yuma was beginning to feel comfortable enough to tell his friends, Rindo wasn't sure of how much longer the secret could be kept quiet.
Perhaps Yuma being half Neighbor, half Japanese was the start of what they needed to show the agents at HQ how Neighbors could be friends. They didn't have to all be enemies. However, that was just Rindo's thought on the matter. He would let Yuma tell his friends as he felt comfortable with them. If it went bad, he would then step in to help his young charge.
He wondered if Yuma was aware of that fact. Jin did tell him that Yuma went behind their backs and told Murakami and Kageura that he was a Neighbor. Rindo didn't care if Yuma thought he could trust people with his secret. He just wanted to know he was going to do it before he did it so he could be ready to handle any backlash from the secret if there was any. It was lucky for them that Murakami and Kageura didn't care.
Rindo quickly snuffed out his cigarette on the bottom of his shoe when he saw the away ship door open and lower to be a ramp. Knowing that Yuma was returning and recovering from a surgery, he didn't want to breath cigarette smoke into the kid's face.
Once the hatch of the ship opened, Shinoda and Rindo made their way towards the ship to greet the agents as they disembarked.
"Welcome back!" Shinoda greeted.
"You're going to have a horrible time with this." Kikuchihara said by way of greeting.
Well, Shinoda could always count on Kikuchihara to clue him in on how bad something was going to be with his sharp tongue.
"It's not that bad." Utagawa protested as he followed his teammate off the ship. He glanced quickly at Shinoda and Rindo with a look of sympathy. "Everything's alright. Kuga's alive."
"And in tact too. Well, for the most part." Kikuchihara said.
Utagawa shifted a glare towards his teammate. He wasn't sure if that was a dig at Yuma being half made of Trion prosthetics or because he was missing memories and that made him broken. Either way, the comment was unnecessary. Yes, it was true, but it didn't really need spoken out loud.
"So, what happened? What was Jin worried about?" Rindo asked.
"Amnesia." Was the reply that Rindo got as Kazama stepped off the ship with Yuma and Jin following behind him.
Amnesia?
Rindo's eyes snapped to Yuma, but Yuma wasn't looking at him. Instead, Yuma, Yuma with black hair and scars surrounding his eye, was too busy looking around the hangar. His eyes flickered around the room, landing on each new face for only a few seconds before he was looking at the next person.
This wasn't how Yuma would react. A Yuma who survived the surgery he was scared of would have jumped off the away ship and looked at them with a big grin and be excited to see what he had missed. The Yuma in front of him was looking around in wonder as if this was all new to him. The Yuma in front of him looked at each new face with a cautious frown as he tried to figure them out.
This...
This was something Rindo hadn't expected to come of the surgery. They only talked about the dangers of the surgery. They talked about how it had a high chance of Yuma dying. They talked about the low chance of success.
They never discussed what else could happen as a result of the surgery if it was a success. They didn't even think about it. All their focus had been on the life or death aspect of the surgery. Nothing more. Nothing less.
"Yuma." Rindo greeted as a way to get Yuma's attention back to him. When those eyes did turn back to Rindo, he hated the way those eyes just stared at him in blankness, not a single sign of recognition in them. "I'm glad to see that your surgery was a success."
Amnesia was not what Rindo saw coming. Based on the way Shinoda's jaw had clenched tightly at Kazama's earlier reply, he could tell that it hadn't crossed any of their minds. This just felt like it came out of nowhere.
But...
Yuma was alive.
The memory loss was horrible, but as long as his young charge was alive, Rindo could deal with anything else that got thrown his way.
Yuma tilted his head in confusion. "Who are you?"
Rindo smiled. "Apologies. Rindo Takumi. I'm the director of Tamakoma Branch."
"Ah," Yuma said. Tamakoma. Jin kept saying that name to him. That was the branch they worked for. "Rindo." He tested the name on his tongue, brows furrowed. With each new name he learned, he kept testing the name to see if anything felt familiar about them. The names never helped him though. Nothing ever clicked in his mind from the names, and yet, 'Elite among elites' somehow triggered his memories earlier.
This really made no sense to him at all.
"Rindo-san." Jin corrected Yuma. He ruffled Yuma's hair as he walked passed his short friend. "Sorry about not informing you of the amnesia in the message. I wanted to explain it to you in person." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Yuma. "And have him examined in our medical ward."
Yuma whined at that. "I got checked out before I left the hospital in Galopoula."
"Yes, but I want to get your health checked and documented for our records." Jin explained. He was sure his friend was sick of the hospital after being stuck for one in weeks, but he was not taking any chances with Yuma's health right now after such a dangerous surgery. "Oh, Kinuta-san, there are some medical records for Yuma and they hold more data about the surgery Yuma underwent. I'm sure you'll found them interesting."
Kinuta scoffed. "I just knew you were going to keep dragging me into this mess." He glanced at Yuma and found himself pulling back a bit when he found those intense red eyes boring holes into him. There was always something unnerving about Yuma's eyes, but the intensity in them had eased away once he got more comfortable working with Kinuta. It seemed all that progress had disappeared.
"I also don't want to overwhelm Yuma with all his friends while he is dealing with amnesia, so I would appreciate it if you didn't let it be known he was back until he gets more settled in at Tamakoma." Jin added. "Just keep it among us and Commander Kido."
"Sure, easy enough." Shinoda replied, though he was staring at Yuma as he spoke. Amnesia was one thing, but there was clear unease and distrust in Yuma. He could see it in the tenseness of his muscles. Jin may have brought Yuma home, but right now, this kid wasn't seeing home in front of him.
All Yuma was seeing were strangers who claimed to know him.