Chapter Text
Aichi does not know where he ends and where Void begins. From time to time, he wakes to find himself floating on an elevated plane of existence, stretched thin and ever expanding, watching bits of himself go in small, steady increments. In other times, he is the sea, and who or what he is means nothing.
He is a sandpiper on the shore.
He is sunlight streaming through the leaves.
He breathes.
He is a child in his mother’s arms.
He pokes at sand with one of his many legs.
He breathes.
He is the sea once more.
— - —
He has breakfast with Ezel.
...who is bemusingly off-putting walking around with his hair down, wearing only a cream-colored robe. He sets down two plates of toast with scrambled eggs and two cups of coffee, one for himself, one for Aichi.
“I can’t imagine where you’ve gone or what you’ve been through, but it’s great to see you back again,” Ezel says warmly. “You have been missed.”
Aichi fidgets bashfully in his seat and looks around.
By them were large, floor-to-ceiling windows that opened to a spacious garden where various -gals were gambolling and barking with delight. Larger high beasts elegantly sat in the shade of trees. Kyrph, Tron, Sagramore, Marron, and Llew were playing games in the living room, boyish laughter peacefully filtering through the sweet morning air. Garmore and Gallatin had brewed themselves their own cups of coffee, leaning against the kitchen counter beside the coffee pot and talking in quieter but no less enthusiastic tones. Beaumains, Epona, and Gancelot are also outside, sitting on the grass exchanging stories. Fortune Bell fashions a quaint flower crown and places it on Gancelot’s head.
Aichi smiles. “It’s good to be back.” He takes a bite of breakfast.
“How’s your body?” Ezel asks.
“Better,” he opens and closes his hands as if to test them. “There’s still a lot left in me, but I can manage.”
“Take care of yourself, Aichi. Will you be staying here long?”
Aichi nods. “We’ve got a bit of time before we need to move again. Blaster Blade says I need to pay Cray Council a visit.”
“You should,” Ezel smiles. “I do think they’d like to know how you are. Speaking of Blaster Blade, the Royals have been wanting to see him, where is he?”
Before Aichi could answer, Blaster Blade and Blaster Dark come through the kitchen doorway, dressed casually in colors that reflects their armor.
“Room for two more?” Blaster Blade asks good-naturedly while Blaster Dark helps himself to a seat.
Ezel waves a hand. “Get breakfast yourselves.”
“I’ll do that,” Blaster Blade answers. “Aichi, Blaster Dark has something he wants to talk to you about.”
“Should I leave?” Ezel begins but Blaster Dark stops him.
“It’s fine. One concern of mine is personal, though I don’t mind you hearing about it. Another is Council-related, so that comes first.”
Aichi’s brow furrows in confusion, but realizes where the conversation is headed. “Ah, they’ve heard about it?”
Blaster Dark shifts in his seat. “Listen Aichi, no one doubts your capabilities to keep Void in check—“
“—they shouldn’t.”
“—not with the Liberators by your side. They’re just concerned, as everyone is.”
There is a tense pause, in which Blaster Blade comes back with breakfast for himself and Blaster Dark. Ezel takes a quiet sip of coffee, keenly observant.
Aichi’s expression is unreadable. Blaster Dark continues carefully, “Your eyes are rimmed black. What has Void been telling you?”
He smiles wanly. “Void always whispers to me.”
“What does it say?”
Aichi closes his eyes and leans back onto the cushioned chair with a sigh, serenely quiet as if listening. “If I set it free, I can have everything I want in the world.”
— - —
Ren dreams.
He stands on Cray, a familiar landscape of rocky grey and blue under a vast night sky filled with stars. It’s the Cray Ren always imagines.
There is movement in his periphery. He turns to look and sees a boy planting a tiny, dark tree. His shock of blue hair is painfully familiar.
“So it’s you.”
Aichi jumps and turns around, instinctively making himself small and hidden, but stops himself. “H-hello, Ren-san.”
“It’s you,” Ren says evenly. “The one go gave himself up in exchange for Void’s disappearance, Sendou Aichi.”
Is this what Blaster Dark was talking about? Aichi thinks and scratches the back of his neck. “How do you know, Ren-san? I thought the conditions were for no one to remember…”
A glow of power shines within Ren’s eyes, power Aichi knows well. His hand drops. “Psyqualia…”
Ren sits down on a stone chair and table and invites Aichi to sit with him. He concedes. In any other circumstance, they would be fighting on that table, but now is not those times.
“At least I have something good to tell Souryuu Leon and the child from Singapore,” Ren smiles and rests his chin on his hands.
“Leon-kun and Chris-kun?” Aichi asks. “Why?”
“Ah~” Ren sighs in his singsong way. “The whole Void affair was very confusing and tiring. We were especially shocked when it suddenly went away, and so did you, and no one remembered anything about you at all, like you never existed.”
Aichi laughs sheepishly, trying to figure out what his feelings are doing, drawing a blank, before settling for a vague sort of relief, a comfort in familiarity. It warms his heart. “So they remember as well, because of Psyqualia...”
“But really, this is great,” Ren says in a more serious tone. “We thought we lost you. But now I know that's not true and I can come here to play against you.”
Aichi balks. “W-wait, Ren-san! I don’t have much control over where I can go, much less make it back here to fight with you.”
“But you do want to come back here, don’t you?”
Aichi looks at his feet. “Of course.”
“Then it’s settled! Let’s fight once you’re here again.”
There is a comfortable pause before Aichi asks, “How have things been going?”
“Oh? Great, I suppose. The start of a new school year means the start of a new Vanguard Koushien, or whatever it’s called. You know how I'm bad with this stuff.”
Aichi is fidgeting, embarrassed to clarify himself, but he eventually does. “H-how is Kai-kun?”
“Hmm? Kai, huh? Happier. Miwa-kun says he’s back to his former self, but I’ve never seen Kai like that so I wouldn’t know. He still looks like a poop with a giant frown on his face! ...but,” an expression Aichi can't place crosses Ren's face. "He's as fine as he lets himself be."
Ren sees Aichi red in the face and he smiles once more, this time knowing and secretive. “Why don’t you pay him a visit?
— - —
“There’s something in my house.”
“What.”
“I said there’s something in my—“
“I know what you said, but what makes you say that?”
Kai and Miwa are on their way home from a lively Friday afternoon at Card Capital. Miwa is halfway through finishing a sweet-filled crepe and Kai is steadily consuming a bottle of peach Calpis.
“Sometimes I forget to turn off the lights when I leave for work, and when I come back home, the apartment’s completely dark. When I can’t find the things I’m looking for, they just show up as if they’ve always been where they were. Other times when I go to bed, I can feel something breathing down my neck—“
Miwa’s bark of laughter interrupts him and Kai stares at his friend, mildly irritated.
“Sorry, sorry. I just can't imagine you scared. I know you’ve barely been there for two months. You’re probably still moving in, y'know.”
Kai looks unimpressed.
Miwa shrugs, crepe seemingly about to fall from his grip, “If you’re worried, you can chalk it up to the work of a guardian angel!”
“What the hell does that mean…”
But before Miwa can answer, a strong breeze whips around them, tousling their clothes and hair, and the sakura of April.
It must be Kai’s imagination, he can’t tell, when he feels a smallish hand touch his shoulder and something ascend into the late afternoon sky. For a moment, a great emotion stirs within him, but it's gone as quickly as it came, leaving him with an odd, gratifying sense of closure along with the dying of the wind.
Upon Miwa's inquiry, Kai shakes his head with a quiet smile, insisting they stop by the park to feed the cats before heading home. Inexplicably, he feels safe, warm, and at peace.
END