mission report for greatfountain
Mission report for greatfountain
Delivered by: micehell
Title: Kamen Rider: TOKI-O
Groups/Pairings: TOKIO, Eito, Arashi, and NEWS (though in NEWS' case, it's only Yamapi), also brief mentions of members of SMAP and V6. Pairings: Many and various, though the only lasting (or even serious) ones are Nakai/Joshima and Nino/Hina.
Rating: R (for cussin' and violence and some implied sex)
Warnings: Er, it probably helps to know at least a little about Kamen Rider: Den-O (or at least about Tokusatsu shows in general), but it should be understandable even without that.
Summary: Can six guys (four of who aren't even human... or even all that solid sometimes) save the world from the Evil Plan? Probably not, but at least they'll have fun not doing it.
Notes: Based on KR: Den-O, duh, but there's also bits from various dramas the guys were in, plus some other shows here and there. Have fun seeing if you can catch all the allusions. ;) There are characters from any number of bands in here, but the main ones are Nagase, Okura, Yoko, MatsuJun, Gussan, and Yamapi (and even then mainly the first three). As for everyone's ages, Nagase is 25 and Okura is 18, and the rest of them are the age you would expect them to be relative to that.
~*~
1. Joshima's How-To Café was unusually quiet. There were several reasons for this:
1) Joshima had just brewed a fresh pot of coffee, and while only the truly devoted (such as Nakai) or the truly lacking in tastebuds (such as Nakai) found Joshima’s coffee anything other than thick, the colossal amount of caffeine in it was like the eye of hurricane, lulling everyone into a semi-polite calm before the caffeine jitters kicked in.
2) Nakai had been macking on Joshima all morning with his normal mix of snark with a hint of sleaze (while Joshima slowly turned the coffee bean roaster to a rhythm that only he could hear, oblivious as usual), but since Nakai actually liked Joshima’s coffee, he’d stopped to have a cup. And maybe what Nakai felt for Joshima really was True Lust, but not even he had game while chewing his way through the How-To Café’s special blend .
3) And probably the biggest reason, was that Nagase had stolen all the guitars that were usually spread out around the café. Before he’d taken them away, it had been the usual chaos of off-key/off-tempo/off-note/off-melody renditions of Stairway to Heaven and …Baby One More Time, broken only by the moments when Leader would turn away from his beans (and, still oblivious, from Nakai as well) and play for an always rapt audience (devoted fanboys that they were, since it wasn’t like they were there for the coffee after all).
The theft was only a temporary solution, since Joshima will just make him put them back, but every once in a while Nagase liked to tune the guitars in an attempt to make the whole mess at least one less off-something.
Already the noise around him was picking up, along with a roomful of jittering hands and legs as the coffee kicked in, but Nagase didn’t really mind. He was long used to it now, having worked at the café since he was ten and fresh out of parents, with only one distant cousin willing to take him in. Joshima, newly parentless as well, had barely been old enough to take over the café his father had left him, let alone a ten-year-old, but he’d just smiled as he added guitars to the once perfectly normal décor, and then smiled some more as Nagase promptly broke most of them (and not a few cups as well) when he tried to help around the place.
Fifteen years later they were still squeaking by at the odd little café, Joshima insisting that the glued together guitars and cups just added to the ambiance of the place.
And all those years later, as a newly tuned guitar string broke, whipping back to hit Nagase in the face, which made him grip the guitar tighter in surprise and pain, which made the neck of the guitar break in half, one piece of it hitting a cup of the now cold and thereby even thicker special blend coffee, which promptly went flying, a cup-shaped brown missile, into the kitchen behind the counter, where it smashed any number of cups and sent the bean roaster spinning, coffee beans flying everywhere...
Well, Joshima just smiled and started to clean it all up while Nagase dug out a Band-Aid from the supply he always kept on hand, both of them long used to Nagase’s luck as well.
2. Okura found it strange living on a train, especially one that traveled through time rather than the more usual JR rail lines. His cabin was small and cramped, the bunk was too short, and the best that could be said of the other passengers was that some of them didn’t seem like they should be in an asylum instead of doing a daily commute through time. Strange as it was, though, there were several reasons to like it:
1) It was nothing like living at home had been, and anything that didn’t remind him of what could never be again was a good thing.
2) In the food car Aiba served virulently colorful coffee and Mabo Tofu bagels among other oddities, but even though Aiba himself was probably the oddest thing there, it was still impossible not to smile back at him when he served Okura Incredibly Green coffee (Aiba’s special blend just for him) and a Mystery-Flavor-of-the-Day bagel along with the brightest smile Okura had ever seen.
3) The Owner of the train also had a big smile, but where Aiba’s was bright, Maruyama’s was more like he was always mugging for a camera. He also had a tendency to flirt with Aiba and Okura at the same time (not to mention wandering hands), a lifetime supply of really bad jokes, and he insisted on calling Okura Tacchon no matter how many times Okura accidentally stepped on his foot when he did it. But he was sweet and (mostly) harmless, and, for the biggest reason to like him of all, he was the guy who was helping Okura search for the hero that was going to save his new home from the same fate his old one had suffered.
So when Maru called him over after their third morning commute of the day, waggling his eyebrows and telling Okura to, “Open your mouth and close your eyes, and I will give you a big surprise,” Okura at least (mostly) closed his eyes instead of slapping him.
And when he saw the special pass that Maru slipped into his hand, the one that would let whoever their hero turned out to be have access to all the really awesome resources that the train had...
Well, Okura’s smile could have given even Aiba’s a run for its money.
3. Nagase’s day started out with him crashing his bike twice and getting hit by a glowing ball of light that dumped sand and ash all over him and then disappeared.
4. Okura’s day started out with him having to listen to Tsuyoshi (one of the commuters that really should have been in an asylum) complain about his day and by losing the special train pass.
5. When Nagase had first moved into the apartment above the café, Mabo had been the only kid in the neighborhood willing to hang with him instead of laughing (at his bad luck, at his fuzzy Doraemon pajamas, at his dorky cousin), and they’d spent long days over summer breaks watching Doraemon (though Mabo did kid him about the pajamas), listening to Joshima play, and trying to survive Nagase’s bad luck .
But when Mabo had turned fifteen, he’d taken to wearing purple suits and sunglasses all the time, and slouching about like a yankee even though he never joined in one of their groups. Nagase (who, at thirteen, still had the pajamas, the cousin, and the bad luck) had still been willing to hang with him, but he hadn’t fit in with Mabo’s new image and they’d eventually drifted apart.
Mabo had wound up being in a failed boy band for a number of years before he’d finally settled down as the cook in a (much more traditional) café a couple of blocks over from Joshima’s (far less traditional) How-To. He was still wearing the purple suit and sunglasses, though, when Nagase, blinded for a moment by the sand and ash, wound up crashing into him with the bike.
Nagase apologized, but he was late and there were too many years between them for anything else, so he left before he saw the wistful look on Mabo’s face or the frantic search for his now missing keychain (the Doraemon one Nagase had given him on his fifteenth birthday, before everything had fallen apart).
He left long before he could see the glowing ball of light that dropped ash and sand on Mabo, too, or the monster that formed out of it, with long silver hair and pointed ears and way too much tight black leather. But Mabo was right there, still wistful and desperately looking for his lost keychain when the monster said, “I can find you what you’ve lost, guaranteed.”
Mabo, not having been born yesterday (and not particularly inclined to trust demons in tight leather), asked, “What’s it going to cost me?”
The demon smiled (sharp teeth showing in a way that completely failed to make him look more trustworthy). “Just one memory. One teeny tiny memory.”
6. He’d grumbled a little bit about making everyone late (even though Okura had rolled his eyes and asked under his breath how anyone would be late riding a train through time), but Maru had eventually agreed to take the train back along its route so they could look for the missing pass.
When the train pulled up at the first stop of their backwards trip, instead of leaving from the food car exit as he normally did, Okura got off the exit by his cabin, having searched there one more time just to make sure.
It was just by luck he didn’t see the exit to the food car open and Aiba lean out to talk to the guy that was standing there, mouth hanging open in surprise.
7. In one of the odd twists his luck liked to take, Nagase found the sort of wallet-y looking thing without crashing his bike or getting one bruise at all. He’d looked it over, trying to figure out what it was besides wallet-y looking, but then he’d just shrugged and decided to turn it in at the police station down the street.
He stuffed it in his pocket and then immediately fell over his own feet when a train appeared out of nowhere and pulled up in front of him. A door opened and a guy with a really great smile leaned out and handed him a cup of something monumentally red, saying, “I thought the Road Sign Red coffee would suit you best.”
Figuring anyone with a smile like that was either really nice or a serial killer (in which case he was doomed anyway), and being too inured to bad coffee to be thrown off by the color, Nagase took a sip and then wound up slurping the whole thing down when it actually tasted like coffee instead of the sludge he usually faced every day.
He just had time to hand the cup back and say thanks before the train pulled out and disappeared again. Deciding he must have imagined the whole thing, he looked at his watch, remembered to panic about being late and rode off, not even noticing when he plowed through the monster that was rising up out of the piles of sand and ash he was still shedding everywhere.
8. Okura was hurrying back to where he could catch the train again when he literally ran into a really good-looking guy. Normally meeting a hot guy would be something to be happy about, but he had a train to catch and the other guy was in a hurry, too, so they both just apologized and went their own ways…
Until Okura noticed the sand and ash the guy was trailing behind him as he rode off on his bike. Shaking his head, Okura asked the Fates that were obviously against him, “Fuck me sideways, I’ve already had to listen to Tsuyoshi bitch for hours straight this morning and also lost the pass, but now I have to deal with Imagins before I’ve even managed to find someone who can use the pass? Can this day get any worse?”
Remembering that asking if a day could get any worse was just an invitation for it to do so, he sighed and then took off after the Imagin.
9. Nagase was about ten feet from the police station when a guy with long silver hair and really unfortunate skin and ears jumped out in front of him, asking in a James Bond villain kind of voice, “Do you have the lost item that I’m seeking?”
Fifteen years of living with Joshima having made him an old hand at weirdness, Nagase just shrugged and showed him the wallet-y thing. “Is this it?”
Two things happened after that, pretty much at the same time:
1) The cute kid that he’d run into just a while ago came running up shouting, “That’s mine!” and
2) the unfortunate skin guy started beating the crap out him.
Nagase was a big guy and fairly athletic, but his luck… well, he’d discovered early in life that it was often easier on his health in the long run to just let the bullies have their fun rather than find out how much damage he could inadvertently cause himself trying to fight back. Still, after a couple of hard hits to the head he was starting to wonder how much worse it could be when two more things happened at the same time:
1) The cute kid landed a really good kick on the weirdo (which, unfortunately wound up translating into Nagase getting slammed into a nearby wall) and
2) another weirdo literally popped up at his feet, head and chest coming up out of the ground, legs and waist coming down out of the air like some kind of badly done photoshop. Besides the weird split to his body, he looked kind of like a bald kabuki with fangs and horn, and it wasn’t at all comforting when he shouted, “Let me in!”
But comforting or not, there was nothing Nagase could do when the kabuki player leapt up at him and then the world went away.
10. Okura had just meant to keep the Imagin from beating the hot guy (who’d apparently had his pass all along, and fuck him sideways again, but how coincidental was that?), but it hadn’t helped at all. And then to top that off, there had been another Imagin, this one without a contract (which should have meant it wasn’t a threat yet), but it had somehow managed to possess the hot guy (which it should have been able to do, either).
He’d just had to ask how much worse his day could get, hadn’t he?
When the Imagin possessed the hot guy, his hair had turned blond for some odd reason, but other than that the only way to tell the difference was because now the hot guy could actually fight, kicking out and slapping the other Imagin around. The kicking and slapping was interspersed with moments when he’d check out his reflection in a shop window, preening a bit and saying, “Whoa, I’m tall!” which might have been another sign of the possession, but for all Okura knew, that was perfectly normal. Either way, even though the whole situation strongly tempted him to, he carefully didn’t roll his eyes or think anything about how bad his day was going.
The possessing Imagin could apparently bitch fight like there was no tomorrow, and the other Imagin had just taken off running after some sharp pulls to his hair, when all of a sudden, careful or not, Okura’s day got worse. Because at that moment, the hot guy managed to kick the Imagin possessing him out of his body, which he really, really shouldn’t have been able to do. Not unless...
Asking for it or not, there was no way Okura couldn’t roll his eyes at how perfectly horribly fuckingly badly his day was going, even if he had found both his missing pass and his missing hero.
11. Nagase had panicked a little at first, but eventually he’d gotten the hang of being a passenger in his own body, especially when he’d figured out how to see what was happening, and then even more so when it had turned out that the kabuki player wasn’t affected by Nagase’s luck at all and could kick some serious ass.
Once the fight was over, though, the whole being possessed thing kind of sucked, so he thought really, really hard and (after repeating to himself a Buddhist prayer that he sort of remembered, as well as potentially helpful bits of Star Wars (Do or do not, there is no try)) managed to be the only one in his body again.
But that was when two things happened at the same time yet once again:
1) The kabuki player did his split body thing again, the head at Nagase’s feet saying, “I can give you whatever it is you really want, and-"
2) the train from before showed up, plowing right through the kabuki player in a shower of sand and ash.
The door on the train opened and the guy from before leaned out, smiling that awesome smile, and asked, “Would you like another cup of coffee? Or maybe Fried Chicken bagels?” But before Nagase could say yes, please to either (because Fried Chicken bagels sounded as awesome as the coffee had been), the cute guy from before pushed him up into the train, calling out to the kabuki player, “Much as it pains me to say it, you come, too,” and then the train took off.
12. Inside the train, outside of the constraints of time and contracts, the Imagin solidified, looking much like the kabuki player Nagase kept calling him. It was then that Okura gave Nagase the bullet points of Things That The Hero Needed To Know:
The Imagin felt the need to interrupt the important bullet points by saying, “Well, actually a lot of us are just here for the food and shopping and stuff. It’s just the only way to get here was to sign up for the whole Evil Plan thing, but our heart isn’t really in it, you know?”
Okura resisted rolling his eyes only because they were beginning to hurt after the workout they’d had that day and continued.
It was Nagase interrupting this time to ask, “Wouldn’t it just be easier for them to rampage here and now and upset the timeline at a future point instead of doing all the contracts and time travel and stuff?”
Which was actually a good point, and Okura had never heard what the whole travel back in time was all about, but rule were rules, and apparently the Imagin had to follow them, so he just continued.
Nagase (again) asked, “Wait, I wanted this guy to look like a bald kabuki player with horns and fangs?”
Okura was about to agree, but then the Imagin laughed and pulled off his mask, looking like a perfectly normal (and not even bad looking except for the bad blond dye job) human. “What, this? No, I had it from before. We had a really wild going away party where I used to work before I signed on for the whole Evil Plan thing.” He looked at his reflection (in one of the train windows this time), preening (again). “I look just like I did before, so apparently you imagined me to look like perfection itself.”
Even Aiba (who’d been trying to figure out the perfect coffee to serve the Imagin before finally settling on plain black) snorted at that one. Nagase just nodded. “Yeah, I can see that. I must have been on drugs at the time, though.”
With more patience than should be humanly possible, Okura ignored all of them and went on to the important part.
When he’d first started looking for this hero, Okura had imagined him to be tall and handsome, quick-witted and a strong fighter. Looking at Nagase, Okura had to console himself with the fact that at least two out of the four had come true.
Nagase looked blank for a second and then surprised as he figured it out. “Wait, you’re serious? I’m the hero? Bitchin’!”
13. Nagase was too busy striking heroic poses to pay attention when Okura rolled his eyes and mouthed bitchin’ at him, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Years of being around Nakai had made him impervious to sarcasm.
Nothing, however, had made him impervious to his bad luck and he didn’t see that changing anytime soon, hero or not. After he’d explained to the others just how bad it was (and had accidentally broken most everyone’s cups of coffee while he was at it), even Aiba had started to look pessimistic.
But Okura just nodded. “I’d guessed it wasn’t going to be smooth sailing watching you fight. And that’s where the Imagin-"
From over at the food car’s counter where he was flirting with Aiba (who Okura could only conclude had no taste, since he was encouraging it), the Imagin interrupted him again. “Dude, I already told you that you can just call me Yoko.”
“Fine, that’s where Yoko comes in. Since he can’t approach another human to form a contract until you either accept or refuse his offer, and since you can just not do either of those things, he’s kind of stuck with you. And since your luck doesn’t affect him when he possesses you, he can just fight in your place.”
Yoko reached a hand up (and up some more) to clap Nagase on the shoulder. “It’s cool. Just lend me your body from time to time for something besides kicking ass and we’ll call it a deal. Er, you know, a non-contract deal, not a deal deal.”
Afterward, when Nagase was about to go home, panicked once again over how late he was (and where the hell his bike had wound up after everything), Okura took him aside and said, “Just remember to be careful. The more Yoko is in your body, the more exhausted you’ll be.”
Nagase smiled and told him, “It’s okay. I mostly top anyway.”
Which is when Okura finally gave up and went to bed.
14. When Nagase woke up in a strip bar wearing his Hamtaro pajamas (they didn’t make Doraemon ones in his size) and down about a hundred bucks, he had to put his foot down.
Back on the train he said, “Look, Yoko, you can’t just hijack my body when I’m sleeping. I’m tired enough as it is, what with running around trying to find Imagins all day and still working in the café so I’ll at least have some money, which is pointless if you’re just going to go out and blow it anyway. And, okay, you help me when I have to actually fight the Imagins, which is cool even if I am the one who winds up with all the bruises. And you did help me set things straight with Mabo when we took out that Imagin who’d found his keychain, which was also cool, but then you went and made out with him while in my body, which makes things just all kind of awkward now. So, man, just no more. No more making out with my friends, and no more entering eating contests with Okura and then bailing when the puking starts, and no more telling Joshima that I want to go on a matchmaking session with Nakai.”
Yoko nodded, looking contrite. “I got it, I got it. I promise, no more getting you in trouble… though, um, the no making out with your friends, that only counts when I’m in your body, right?"
“Sure, you can still make out with Aiba in the storeroom as often as you like. Though, really, letting Maru join you? Just so wrong, man.”
15. Okura and Nagase were having a not particularly deep conversation over a cup of Aiba’s Rainbo TOKI-O coffe (Why is it Kamen Rider: TOKI-O, anyway?)(Because all the cool names were taken.) when Nagase fell asleep.
Okura nudged him awake. “Is Yoko still keeping you out all hours of the night?”
Nagase shrugged, “He says not, but I’m really tired.”
Aiba was wiping down cups, but he looked up at that. “It wasn’t him. We did karaoke all last night.”
Okura laughed. “Oh, is that what they’re calling it these days.” But he was worried. After all, once Nagase had let one Imagin use his body, who was to say the others wouldn’t think he was easy?
16. Nagase sighed. “Apparently once you let one Imagin into your body, they all think you’re an easy lay.”
Okura sighed. “I was afraid of that.”
Yoko sighed. “And, fuck it, he’s all handsome and stuff. Not that I’m not amazingly hot, but he always knows the right thing to say and stuff. Hell, he even makes Nagase come off as smooth, and that’s like miracle territory there.”
Aiba sighed. “He certainly does know how to use his tongue.”
Maru sighed. “Damn it, it was bad enough when Yoko was cutting into my action, now there’s another one.”
Jun smiled. “Hot guys all over the train to pick from plus I’m awesomely tall when I possess Nagase? I should have signed on for the Evil Plan years ago.”
17. Okura had to admit that Jun was helpful to have around. He could con (hook, Jun said) information out of anyone, smooth talking even the most unhelpful of people in a way that Nagase, Okura, and (especially) Yoko couldn’t.
It didn’t make up for the way that he kept trying to pick up strays, though, especially when they were away from their own time. “Who’s this one?”
Jun presented the new friend he’d managed to make (in the scant seconds between them defeating the last Imagin and the time they were all supposed to board the train to go back) to the skeptical eyes of the others. “His name is Jin and he needs our help. Isn’t he pretty?”
Jin was wearing a long white leather coat, with tight black leather pants and shirt, and carrying a huge sword like it was the best penis extension ever. He looked at them (in an awesomely serious way) and said (in an awesomely serious voice), “Where there is light, shadows lurk and fear reigns... yet by the blade of Knights, mankind was given hope.”
Okura didn’t even try to keep from rolling his eyes anymore.
Yoko snorted. “Riiiight. Good to know. But, look, it appears you’re in the wrong show.”
Jin slapped his forehead. “Damn it, again? Sorry about that,” and then took off, presumably to someplace where there were shadows lurking and mankind getting hope and all.
While Jun looked after him, (temporarily) inconsolable, Nagase offered, “I vote we take this stop off the list of Places We’d Like To Go To Ever Again.”
The vote was (mostly) unanimous.
18. Nagase should have guessed really. For all that Okura swore that most Imagins were not like his two and were truly evil, etc etc, they kept coming across a good deal that were, as Yoko had said, just there for the fun.
What Nagase really couldn’t have guessed was that there was another train that ran through time, this one occupied by only a lone Kamen Rider. No (complaining) passengers, or Okura telling him this rule or that, or Maru (or Yoko for that matter) trying to hit on him when he was tired and his defenses (and taste) were down, and, really, was it fair that there were two Kamen Riders with trains, but that Nagase got the weird one?
Once he met the Imagin that Nino traveled with, though, Nagase figured he’d got the better deal.
Not that Murakami wasn’t nice enough, and not that it seemed like Nino minded the way his Imagin tended to get all handsy with him, but, really, the constant bickering would have driven Nagase crazy.
“What do you mean you’re going to call yourself Kamen Rider: Nin-O now? Not only is it lame, but it totally ignores my contribution to this whole thing. What am I, some kind of fucking sidekick?”
But Nino just grinned at his Imagin and waggled his eyebrows suggestively, doing something under the table that made Murakami jump a little and blush a lot. “Exactly.”
Nagase laughed at them, saying “Brat” out loud, but thinking to himself that things had probably worked out for the best all the way around.
19. Okura had hated Imagin for years, ever since they’d destroyed the timeline he came from, but he had to admit that a great many of the ones they came across seemed to be here, as Yoko had said, just for the fun. And while he also had to admit that he had come to grudgingly like (or even sometimes lust after) the two Imagins on their team, it was still something of a novelty to know that he could actually regret one dying.
But Gussan was looking up at them with steadily fading eyes, sadly but bravely facing what was to come and it was starting to actually get to Okura. Even the plaintive, “He’d just wanted to surf one time. One time before he got married and settled down, so he could feel his youth wasn’t wasted,” tugged at Okura’s heart, though he’d deny it if anyone asked.
Gussan trailed off, but they all knew. All knew the effort Gussan had made to complete his contract with Inocchi, to give him that one precious memory. Gussan hadn’t even been going to rampage afterward; he’d have just taken the memory he’d get from the contract and gone and lived a happy life whenever. But now... well, when an Imagin couldn’t complete a contract, they just faded away.
Grudgingly admitted or not, Okura had liked Gussan. Had liked the Imagin’s laid back friendliness. Had liked the dedication he’d shown in trying to help Inocchi get his wish. Okura felt himself getting a misty-eyed as Gussan faded a little more.
It was hard to keep that mood going, though, when Jun asked Gussan, “Can I have the surfboard when you go?”
Harder still when Yoko answered, “Well it’s not like he’ll need it anymore, and Inocchi certainly won’t get any use out of it. I still can’t believe there’s a human who’s even more accident prone than Nagase. Watching him try to surf was like watching a video called World’s Stupidest Accidents or something.”
Okura lost it altogether when Nagase asked, “Do you think if he possessed me he’d stop fading? I always did want to learn how to surf.”
It turned out Gussan did stop fading when he possessed Nagase, which would have been (grudgingly admitted) good news to Okura if it weren’t for two things:
1) Nagase’s exhaustion (and his tan) were growing by the day since now all the Imagins wanted to surf, and it was cutting into their hunting Imagin time, and
2) Gussan and Nagase (okay, and perhaps Okura, too) were eating more (if Maru were to be believed) than all the other passengers combined, and it was cutting into their food allowance.
And nice (for an Imagin) or not, Okura was going to burn the surfboard of the next one of them that came between him and his dinner.
20. Yamashita had actually been the easiest Imagin for Nagase to deal with. At first, anyway.
He’d been around for months before anyone even figured out he was there, content to mainly just sit and watch without making any real attempt at either forming a contract or possessing Nagase’s body.
The best kind of Imagin, Okura had said.
Not as irritating as the others, Yoko had claimed.
Hot as hell, had been pretty much everyone’s opinion.
It hadn’t been until they’d come across an Imagin that Yamashita had history with that things had fallen apart. Because that’s when they’d learned about his stubborn streak, when he’d childishly insisted he be the one to fight even though he didn’t have the experience the others did. He’d resisted all the other Imagin’s attempts to push him out of Nagase body, too, holding on even when Nagase tried to drive him out.
It was only after Nino and Murakami had shown up to deal with the Imagin and Nagase had collapsed, too injured to even stay transformed, that Yamashita finally realized what he’d done.
He practiced fighting everyday for months afterward, taking lessons from the other Imagins and taking breaks only when he visited Nagase in the hospital. He was already far leaner (far harder) than he had been by the time Nagase was conscious enough to recognize him, the difference obvious even in his sand and ash form.
He wasn’t the child he had been by the time Nagase got out of the hospital. All he said though was, “Please don’t hate me.”
Nagase wasn’t entirely the same himself, but one thing about him that had never changed, not even when he’d wound up getting possessed by stubborn Imagins, was how he felt about his friends. So all Nagase answered was, “Of course.”
21. Joshima’s How-To Café was unusually noisy. There were quite a few reasons for this:
1) The Evil Plan having finally been stopped, all the Imagin were there to celebrate. They were wearing animal costumes so no one wondered about the weird head on the floor feet in the air thing (and to keep the ash and sand from getting on everything), though that just left them open to the strange looks they were getting for wearing animal costumes at all. They were all banging away noisily at guitars (Gussan was actually good and Yamashita wasn’t bad… Yoko, though, was another matter) and drinking the coffee (which they all liked better than Aiba’s, freaks that they were).
2) Okura was there, too, with Aiba and Maru fussing over him like new parents. This was because he’d regressed ten years (for reasons they were all collectively not talking about), putting him at an apparent age of eight even though his mind was still eighteen. He’d taken to kicking people when he got particularly bitter about it (especially Yoko, who kept calling him Tacchon all the time), but for the most part he was happy enough, especially when being tiny and adorable got him extra helpings of food just about everywhere they ate. Joshima had certainly not been immune, giving him an enormous bowl of ramen that he was noisily slurping up.
3) In addition to not being immune to the charms of a very young Okura, Joshima seemed to have finally noticed that Nakai had been hitting on him for years, and the two of them were in the corner singing (bad) love songs (badly) to each other.
4) Mabo had given over freaking out about making out with Nagase (and apparently gotten over his freak out from having found it hot, too), because he’d hooked up with one of his former boy band mates and the two of them were just about a base hit away from having very noisy sex on the table they were (still sort of) sitting at.
5) Having not much else to do with the Imagin threat gone, Nino and Murakami had stopped by, too. They were happily bickering about what they should do with the train now that they didn’t actually need it (all while playing footsie under the table).
Nagase was just about the only quiet person in the place, sitting at the counter with his back against a wall, content to just lazily tune the guitar he’d stolen as he watched the chaos. He was still perpetually tired from having to keep four Imagin from hijacking his body whenever one of them wanted to go out, and even without the constant fighting he’d been doing before they’d won out against the Evil Plan, he still had his usual collection of aches and pains, his luck as bad as ever.
But looking out over all his friends gathered together in the place he felt the most at home, he also thought he’d never been so lucky.
Until the first guitar string snapped, anyway.
Delivered by: micehell
Title: Kamen Rider: TOKI-O
Groups/Pairings: TOKIO, Eito, Arashi, and NEWS (though in NEWS' case, it's only Yamapi), also brief mentions of members of SMAP and V6. Pairings: Many and various, though the only lasting (or even serious) ones are Nakai/Joshima and Nino/Hina.
Rating: R (for cussin' and violence and some implied sex)
Warnings: Er, it probably helps to know at least a little about Kamen Rider: Den-O (or at least about Tokusatsu shows in general), but it should be understandable even without that.
Summary: Can six guys (four of who aren't even human... or even all that solid sometimes) save the world from the Evil Plan? Probably not, but at least they'll have fun not doing it.
Notes: Based on KR: Den-O, duh, but there's also bits from various dramas the guys were in, plus some other shows here and there. Have fun seeing if you can catch all the allusions. ;) There are characters from any number of bands in here, but the main ones are Nagase, Okura, Yoko, MatsuJun, Gussan, and Yamapi (and even then mainly the first three). As for everyone's ages, Nagase is 25 and Okura is 18, and the rest of them are the age you would expect them to be relative to that.
~*~
1. Joshima's How-To Café was unusually quiet. There were several reasons for this:
1) Joshima had just brewed a fresh pot of coffee, and while only the truly devoted (such as Nakai) or the truly lacking in tastebuds (such as Nakai) found Joshima’s coffee anything other than thick, the colossal amount of caffeine in it was like the eye of hurricane, lulling everyone into a semi-polite calm before the caffeine jitters kicked in.
2) Nakai had been macking on Joshima all morning with his normal mix of snark with a hint of sleaze (while Joshima slowly turned the coffee bean roaster to a rhythm that only he could hear, oblivious as usual), but since Nakai actually liked Joshima’s coffee, he’d stopped to have a cup. And maybe what Nakai felt for Joshima really was True Lust, but not even he had game while chewing his way through the How-To Café’s special blend .
3) And probably the biggest reason, was that Nagase had stolen all the guitars that were usually spread out around the café. Before he’d taken them away, it had been the usual chaos of off-key/off-tempo/off-note/off-melody renditions of Stairway to Heaven and …Baby One More Time, broken only by the moments when Leader would turn away from his beans (and, still oblivious, from Nakai as well) and play for an always rapt audience (devoted fanboys that they were, since it wasn’t like they were there for the coffee after all).
The theft was only a temporary solution, since Joshima will just make him put them back, but every once in a while Nagase liked to tune the guitars in an attempt to make the whole mess at least one less off-something.
Already the noise around him was picking up, along with a roomful of jittering hands and legs as the coffee kicked in, but Nagase didn’t really mind. He was long used to it now, having worked at the café since he was ten and fresh out of parents, with only one distant cousin willing to take him in. Joshima, newly parentless as well, had barely been old enough to take over the café his father had left him, let alone a ten-year-old, but he’d just smiled as he added guitars to the once perfectly normal décor, and then smiled some more as Nagase promptly broke most of them (and not a few cups as well) when he tried to help around the place.
Fifteen years later they were still squeaking by at the odd little café, Joshima insisting that the glued together guitars and cups just added to the ambiance of the place.
And all those years later, as a newly tuned guitar string broke, whipping back to hit Nagase in the face, which made him grip the guitar tighter in surprise and pain, which made the neck of the guitar break in half, one piece of it hitting a cup of the now cold and thereby even thicker special blend coffee, which promptly went flying, a cup-shaped brown missile, into the kitchen behind the counter, where it smashed any number of cups and sent the bean roaster spinning, coffee beans flying everywhere...
Well, Joshima just smiled and started to clean it all up while Nagase dug out a Band-Aid from the supply he always kept on hand, both of them long used to Nagase’s luck as well.
2. Okura found it strange living on a train, especially one that traveled through time rather than the more usual JR rail lines. His cabin was small and cramped, the bunk was too short, and the best that could be said of the other passengers was that some of them didn’t seem like they should be in an asylum instead of doing a daily commute through time. Strange as it was, though, there were several reasons to like it:
1) It was nothing like living at home had been, and anything that didn’t remind him of what could never be again was a good thing.
2) In the food car Aiba served virulently colorful coffee and Mabo Tofu bagels among other oddities, but even though Aiba himself was probably the oddest thing there, it was still impossible not to smile back at him when he served Okura Incredibly Green coffee (Aiba’s special blend just for him) and a Mystery-Flavor-of-the-Day bagel along with the brightest smile Okura had ever seen.
3) The Owner of the train also had a big smile, but where Aiba’s was bright, Maruyama’s was more like he was always mugging for a camera. He also had a tendency to flirt with Aiba and Okura at the same time (not to mention wandering hands), a lifetime supply of really bad jokes, and he insisted on calling Okura Tacchon no matter how many times Okura accidentally stepped on his foot when he did it. But he was sweet and (mostly) harmless, and, for the biggest reason to like him of all, he was the guy who was helping Okura search for the hero that was going to save his new home from the same fate his old one had suffered.
So when Maru called him over after their third morning commute of the day, waggling his eyebrows and telling Okura to, “Open your mouth and close your eyes, and I will give you a big surprise,” Okura at least (mostly) closed his eyes instead of slapping him.
And when he saw the special pass that Maru slipped into his hand, the one that would let whoever their hero turned out to be have access to all the really awesome resources that the train had...
Well, Okura’s smile could have given even Aiba’s a run for its money.
3. Nagase’s day started out with him crashing his bike twice and getting hit by a glowing ball of light that dumped sand and ash all over him and then disappeared.
4. Okura’s day started out with him having to listen to Tsuyoshi (one of the commuters that really should have been in an asylum) complain about his day and by losing the special train pass.
5. When Nagase had first moved into the apartment above the café, Mabo had been the only kid in the neighborhood willing to hang with him instead of laughing (at his bad luck, at his fuzzy Doraemon pajamas, at his dorky cousin), and they’d spent long days over summer breaks watching Doraemon (though Mabo did kid him about the pajamas), listening to Joshima play, and trying to survive Nagase’s bad luck .
But when Mabo had turned fifteen, he’d taken to wearing purple suits and sunglasses all the time, and slouching about like a yankee even though he never joined in one of their groups. Nagase (who, at thirteen, still had the pajamas, the cousin, and the bad luck) had still been willing to hang with him, but he hadn’t fit in with Mabo’s new image and they’d eventually drifted apart.
Mabo had wound up being in a failed boy band for a number of years before he’d finally settled down as the cook in a (much more traditional) café a couple of blocks over from Joshima’s (far less traditional) How-To. He was still wearing the purple suit and sunglasses, though, when Nagase, blinded for a moment by the sand and ash, wound up crashing into him with the bike.
Nagase apologized, but he was late and there were too many years between them for anything else, so he left before he saw the wistful look on Mabo’s face or the frantic search for his now missing keychain (the Doraemon one Nagase had given him on his fifteenth birthday, before everything had fallen apart).
He left long before he could see the glowing ball of light that dropped ash and sand on Mabo, too, or the monster that formed out of it, with long silver hair and pointed ears and way too much tight black leather. But Mabo was right there, still wistful and desperately looking for his lost keychain when the monster said, “I can find you what you’ve lost, guaranteed.”
Mabo, not having been born yesterday (and not particularly inclined to trust demons in tight leather), asked, “What’s it going to cost me?”
The demon smiled (sharp teeth showing in a way that completely failed to make him look more trustworthy). “Just one memory. One teeny tiny memory.”
6. He’d grumbled a little bit about making everyone late (even though Okura had rolled his eyes and asked under his breath how anyone would be late riding a train through time), but Maru had eventually agreed to take the train back along its route so they could look for the missing pass.
When the train pulled up at the first stop of their backwards trip, instead of leaving from the food car exit as he normally did, Okura got off the exit by his cabin, having searched there one more time just to make sure.
It was just by luck he didn’t see the exit to the food car open and Aiba lean out to talk to the guy that was standing there, mouth hanging open in surprise.
7. In one of the odd twists his luck liked to take, Nagase found the sort of wallet-y looking thing without crashing his bike or getting one bruise at all. He’d looked it over, trying to figure out what it was besides wallet-y looking, but then he’d just shrugged and decided to turn it in at the police station down the street.
He stuffed it in his pocket and then immediately fell over his own feet when a train appeared out of nowhere and pulled up in front of him. A door opened and a guy with a really great smile leaned out and handed him a cup of something monumentally red, saying, “I thought the Road Sign Red coffee would suit you best.”
Figuring anyone with a smile like that was either really nice or a serial killer (in which case he was doomed anyway), and being too inured to bad coffee to be thrown off by the color, Nagase took a sip and then wound up slurping the whole thing down when it actually tasted like coffee instead of the sludge he usually faced every day.
He just had time to hand the cup back and say thanks before the train pulled out and disappeared again. Deciding he must have imagined the whole thing, he looked at his watch, remembered to panic about being late and rode off, not even noticing when he plowed through the monster that was rising up out of the piles of sand and ash he was still shedding everywhere.
8. Okura was hurrying back to where he could catch the train again when he literally ran into a really good-looking guy. Normally meeting a hot guy would be something to be happy about, but he had a train to catch and the other guy was in a hurry, too, so they both just apologized and went their own ways…
Until Okura noticed the sand and ash the guy was trailing behind him as he rode off on his bike. Shaking his head, Okura asked the Fates that were obviously against him, “Fuck me sideways, I’ve already had to listen to Tsuyoshi bitch for hours straight this morning and also lost the pass, but now I have to deal with Imagins before I’ve even managed to find someone who can use the pass? Can this day get any worse?”
Remembering that asking if a day could get any worse was just an invitation for it to do so, he sighed and then took off after the Imagin.
9. Nagase was about ten feet from the police station when a guy with long silver hair and really unfortunate skin and ears jumped out in front of him, asking in a James Bond villain kind of voice, “Do you have the lost item that I’m seeking?”
Fifteen years of living with Joshima having made him an old hand at weirdness, Nagase just shrugged and showed him the wallet-y thing. “Is this it?”
Two things happened after that, pretty much at the same time:
1) The cute kid that he’d run into just a while ago came running up shouting, “That’s mine!” and
2) the unfortunate skin guy started beating the crap out him.
Nagase was a big guy and fairly athletic, but his luck… well, he’d discovered early in life that it was often easier on his health in the long run to just let the bullies have their fun rather than find out how much damage he could inadvertently cause himself trying to fight back. Still, after a couple of hard hits to the head he was starting to wonder how much worse it could be when two more things happened at the same time:
1) The cute kid landed a really good kick on the weirdo (which, unfortunately wound up translating into Nagase getting slammed into a nearby wall) and
2) another weirdo literally popped up at his feet, head and chest coming up out of the ground, legs and waist coming down out of the air like some kind of badly done photoshop. Besides the weird split to his body, he looked kind of like a bald kabuki with fangs and horn, and it wasn’t at all comforting when he shouted, “Let me in!”
But comforting or not, there was nothing Nagase could do when the kabuki player leapt up at him and then the world went away.
10. Okura had just meant to keep the Imagin from beating the hot guy (who’d apparently had his pass all along, and fuck him sideways again, but how coincidental was that?), but it hadn’t helped at all. And then to top that off, there had been another Imagin, this one without a contract (which should have meant it wasn’t a threat yet), but it had somehow managed to possess the hot guy (which it should have been able to do, either).
He’d just had to ask how much worse his day could get, hadn’t he?
When the Imagin possessed the hot guy, his hair had turned blond for some odd reason, but other than that the only way to tell the difference was because now the hot guy could actually fight, kicking out and slapping the other Imagin around. The kicking and slapping was interspersed with moments when he’d check out his reflection in a shop window, preening a bit and saying, “Whoa, I’m tall!” which might have been another sign of the possession, but for all Okura knew, that was perfectly normal. Either way, even though the whole situation strongly tempted him to, he carefully didn’t roll his eyes or think anything about how bad his day was going.
The possessing Imagin could apparently bitch fight like there was no tomorrow, and the other Imagin had just taken off running after some sharp pulls to his hair, when all of a sudden, careful or not, Okura’s day got worse. Because at that moment, the hot guy managed to kick the Imagin possessing him out of his body, which he really, really shouldn’t have been able to do. Not unless...
Asking for it or not, there was no way Okura couldn’t roll his eyes at how perfectly horribly fuckingly badly his day was going, even if he had found both his missing pass and his missing hero.
11. Nagase had panicked a little at first, but eventually he’d gotten the hang of being a passenger in his own body, especially when he’d figured out how to see what was happening, and then even more so when it had turned out that the kabuki player wasn’t affected by Nagase’s luck at all and could kick some serious ass.
Once the fight was over, though, the whole being possessed thing kind of sucked, so he thought really, really hard and (after repeating to himself a Buddhist prayer that he sort of remembered, as well as potentially helpful bits of Star Wars (Do or do not, there is no try)) managed to be the only one in his body again.
But that was when two things happened at the same time yet once again:
1) The kabuki player did his split body thing again, the head at Nagase’s feet saying, “I can give you whatever it is you really want, and-"
2) the train from before showed up, plowing right through the kabuki player in a shower of sand and ash.
The door on the train opened and the guy from before leaned out, smiling that awesome smile, and asked, “Would you like another cup of coffee? Or maybe Fried Chicken bagels?” But before Nagase could say yes, please to either (because Fried Chicken bagels sounded as awesome as the coffee had been), the cute guy from before pushed him up into the train, calling out to the kabuki player, “Much as it pains me to say it, you come, too,” and then the train took off.
12. Inside the train, outside of the constraints of time and contracts, the Imagin solidified, looking much like the kabuki player Nagase kept calling him. It was then that Okura gave Nagase the bullet points of Things That The Hero Needed To Know:
- Imagins are evil creatures from another time who are out to destroy this timeline.
The Imagin felt the need to interrupt the important bullet points by saying, “Well, actually a lot of us are just here for the food and shopping and stuff. It’s just the only way to get here was to sign up for the whole Evil Plan thing, but our heart isn’t really in it, you know?”
Okura resisted rolling his eyes only because they were beginning to hurt after the workout they’d had that day and continued.
- Imagins do this by forming contracts with humans where they’ll perform some service for them and then take a memory in payment. The Imagin then travels back in time to the point where the memory occurred, where they start to rampage, causing as much death and destruction as they can in order to damage the timeline.
It was Nagase interrupting this time to ask, “Wouldn’t it just be easier for them to rampage here and now and upset the timeline at a future point instead of doing all the contracts and time travel and stuff?”
Which was actually a good point, and Okura had never heard what the whole travel back in time was all about, but rule were rules, and apparently the Imagin had to follow them, so he just continued.
- Imagins appear as sand and ash until they make a contract with a human. The shape they take in either form is from the human’s mind, but it’s only in the solid form that they become a threat.”
Nagase (again) asked, “Wait, I wanted this guy to look like a bald kabuki player with horns and fangs?”
Okura was about to agree, but then the Imagin laughed and pulled off his mask, looking like a perfectly normal (and not even bad looking except for the bad blond dye job) human. “What, this? No, I had it from before. We had a really wild going away party where I used to work before I signed on for the whole Evil Plan thing.” He looked at his reflection (in one of the train windows this time), preening (again). “I look just like I did before, so apparently you imagined me to look like perfection itself.”
Even Aiba (who’d been trying to figure out the perfect coffee to serve the Imagin before finally settling on plain black) snorted at that one. Nagase just nodded. “Yeah, I can see that. I must have been on drugs at the time, though.”
With more patience than should be humanly possible, Okura ignored all of them and went on to the important part.
- There are those that can fight the Imagin. Kamen Riders that can harness the power of this train to preserve the timeline. And... well, you’re it.
When he’d first started looking for this hero, Okura had imagined him to be tall and handsome, quick-witted and a strong fighter. Looking at Nagase, Okura had to console himself with the fact that at least two out of the four had come true.
Nagase looked blank for a second and then surprised as he figured it out. “Wait, you’re serious? I’m the hero? Bitchin’!”
13. Nagase was too busy striking heroic poses to pay attention when Okura rolled his eyes and mouthed bitchin’ at him, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Years of being around Nakai had made him impervious to sarcasm.
Nothing, however, had made him impervious to his bad luck and he didn’t see that changing anytime soon, hero or not. After he’d explained to the others just how bad it was (and had accidentally broken most everyone’s cups of coffee while he was at it), even Aiba had started to look pessimistic.
But Okura just nodded. “I’d guessed it wasn’t going to be smooth sailing watching you fight. And that’s where the Imagin-"
From over at the food car’s counter where he was flirting with Aiba (who Okura could only conclude had no taste, since he was encouraging it), the Imagin interrupted him again. “Dude, I already told you that you can just call me Yoko.”
“Fine, that’s where Yoko comes in. Since he can’t approach another human to form a contract until you either accept or refuse his offer, and since you can just not do either of those things, he’s kind of stuck with you. And since your luck doesn’t affect him when he possesses you, he can just fight in your place.”
Yoko reached a hand up (and up some more) to clap Nagase on the shoulder. “It’s cool. Just lend me your body from time to time for something besides kicking ass and we’ll call it a deal. Er, you know, a non-contract deal, not a deal deal.”
Afterward, when Nagase was about to go home, panicked once again over how late he was (and where the hell his bike had wound up after everything), Okura took him aside and said, “Just remember to be careful. The more Yoko is in your body, the more exhausted you’ll be.”
Nagase smiled and told him, “It’s okay. I mostly top anyway.”
Which is when Okura finally gave up and went to bed.
14. When Nagase woke up in a strip bar wearing his Hamtaro pajamas (they didn’t make Doraemon ones in his size) and down about a hundred bucks, he had to put his foot down.
Back on the train he said, “Look, Yoko, you can’t just hijack my body when I’m sleeping. I’m tired enough as it is, what with running around trying to find Imagins all day and still working in the café so I’ll at least have some money, which is pointless if you’re just going to go out and blow it anyway. And, okay, you help me when I have to actually fight the Imagins, which is cool even if I am the one who winds up with all the bruises. And you did help me set things straight with Mabo when we took out that Imagin who’d found his keychain, which was also cool, but then you went and made out with him while in my body, which makes things just all kind of awkward now. So, man, just no more. No more making out with my friends, and no more entering eating contests with Okura and then bailing when the puking starts, and no more telling Joshima that I want to go on a matchmaking session with Nakai.”
Yoko nodded, looking contrite. “I got it, I got it. I promise, no more getting you in trouble… though, um, the no making out with your friends, that only counts when I’m in your body, right?"
“Sure, you can still make out with Aiba in the storeroom as often as you like. Though, really, letting Maru join you? Just so wrong, man.”
15. Okura and Nagase were having a not particularly deep conversation over a cup of Aiba’s Rainbo TOKI-O coffe (Why is it Kamen Rider: TOKI-O, anyway?)(Because all the cool names were taken.) when Nagase fell asleep.
Okura nudged him awake. “Is Yoko still keeping you out all hours of the night?”
Nagase shrugged, “He says not, but I’m really tired.”
Aiba was wiping down cups, but he looked up at that. “It wasn’t him. We did karaoke all last night.”
Okura laughed. “Oh, is that what they’re calling it these days.” But he was worried. After all, once Nagase had let one Imagin use his body, who was to say the others wouldn’t think he was easy?
16. Nagase sighed. “Apparently once you let one Imagin into your body, they all think you’re an easy lay.”
Okura sighed. “I was afraid of that.”
Yoko sighed. “And, fuck it, he’s all handsome and stuff. Not that I’m not amazingly hot, but he always knows the right thing to say and stuff. Hell, he even makes Nagase come off as smooth, and that’s like miracle territory there.”
Aiba sighed. “He certainly does know how to use his tongue.”
Maru sighed. “Damn it, it was bad enough when Yoko was cutting into my action, now there’s another one.”
Jun smiled. “Hot guys all over the train to pick from plus I’m awesomely tall when I possess Nagase? I should have signed on for the Evil Plan years ago.”
17. Okura had to admit that Jun was helpful to have around. He could con (hook, Jun said) information out of anyone, smooth talking even the most unhelpful of people in a way that Nagase, Okura, and (especially) Yoko couldn’t.
It didn’t make up for the way that he kept trying to pick up strays, though, especially when they were away from their own time. “Who’s this one?”
Jun presented the new friend he’d managed to make (in the scant seconds between them defeating the last Imagin and the time they were all supposed to board the train to go back) to the skeptical eyes of the others. “His name is Jin and he needs our help. Isn’t he pretty?”
Jin was wearing a long white leather coat, with tight black leather pants and shirt, and carrying a huge sword like it was the best penis extension ever. He looked at them (in an awesomely serious way) and said (in an awesomely serious voice), “Where there is light, shadows lurk and fear reigns... yet by the blade of Knights, mankind was given hope.”
Okura didn’t even try to keep from rolling his eyes anymore.
Yoko snorted. “Riiiight. Good to know. But, look, it appears you’re in the wrong show.”
Jin slapped his forehead. “Damn it, again? Sorry about that,” and then took off, presumably to someplace where there were shadows lurking and mankind getting hope and all.
While Jun looked after him, (temporarily) inconsolable, Nagase offered, “I vote we take this stop off the list of Places We’d Like To Go To Ever Again.”
The vote was (mostly) unanimous.
18. Nagase should have guessed really. For all that Okura swore that most Imagins were not like his two and were truly evil, etc etc, they kept coming across a good deal that were, as Yoko had said, just there for the fun.
What Nagase really couldn’t have guessed was that there was another train that ran through time, this one occupied by only a lone Kamen Rider. No (complaining) passengers, or Okura telling him this rule or that, or Maru (or Yoko for that matter) trying to hit on him when he was tired and his defenses (and taste) were down, and, really, was it fair that there were two Kamen Riders with trains, but that Nagase got the weird one?
Once he met the Imagin that Nino traveled with, though, Nagase figured he’d got the better deal.
Not that Murakami wasn’t nice enough, and not that it seemed like Nino minded the way his Imagin tended to get all handsy with him, but, really, the constant bickering would have driven Nagase crazy.
“What do you mean you’re going to call yourself Kamen Rider: Nin-O now? Not only is it lame, but it totally ignores my contribution to this whole thing. What am I, some kind of fucking sidekick?”
But Nino just grinned at his Imagin and waggled his eyebrows suggestively, doing something under the table that made Murakami jump a little and blush a lot. “Exactly.”
Nagase laughed at them, saying “Brat” out loud, but thinking to himself that things had probably worked out for the best all the way around.
19. Okura had hated Imagin for years, ever since they’d destroyed the timeline he came from, but he had to admit that a great many of the ones they came across seemed to be here, as Yoko had said, just for the fun. And while he also had to admit that he had come to grudgingly like (or even sometimes lust after) the two Imagins on their team, it was still something of a novelty to know that he could actually regret one dying.
But Gussan was looking up at them with steadily fading eyes, sadly but bravely facing what was to come and it was starting to actually get to Okura. Even the plaintive, “He’d just wanted to surf one time. One time before he got married and settled down, so he could feel his youth wasn’t wasted,” tugged at Okura’s heart, though he’d deny it if anyone asked.
Gussan trailed off, but they all knew. All knew the effort Gussan had made to complete his contract with Inocchi, to give him that one precious memory. Gussan hadn’t even been going to rampage afterward; he’d have just taken the memory he’d get from the contract and gone and lived a happy life whenever. But now... well, when an Imagin couldn’t complete a contract, they just faded away.
Grudgingly admitted or not, Okura had liked Gussan. Had liked the Imagin’s laid back friendliness. Had liked the dedication he’d shown in trying to help Inocchi get his wish. Okura felt himself getting a misty-eyed as Gussan faded a little more.
It was hard to keep that mood going, though, when Jun asked Gussan, “Can I have the surfboard when you go?”
Harder still when Yoko answered, “Well it’s not like he’ll need it anymore, and Inocchi certainly won’t get any use out of it. I still can’t believe there’s a human who’s even more accident prone than Nagase. Watching him try to surf was like watching a video called World’s Stupidest Accidents or something.”
Okura lost it altogether when Nagase asked, “Do you think if he possessed me he’d stop fading? I always did want to learn how to surf.”
It turned out Gussan did stop fading when he possessed Nagase, which would have been (grudgingly admitted) good news to Okura if it weren’t for two things:
1) Nagase’s exhaustion (and his tan) were growing by the day since now all the Imagins wanted to surf, and it was cutting into their hunting Imagin time, and
2) Gussan and Nagase (okay, and perhaps Okura, too) were eating more (if Maru were to be believed) than all the other passengers combined, and it was cutting into their food allowance.
And nice (for an Imagin) or not, Okura was going to burn the surfboard of the next one of them that came between him and his dinner.
20. Yamashita had actually been the easiest Imagin for Nagase to deal with. At first, anyway.
He’d been around for months before anyone even figured out he was there, content to mainly just sit and watch without making any real attempt at either forming a contract or possessing Nagase’s body.
The best kind of Imagin, Okura had said.
Not as irritating as the others, Yoko had claimed.
Hot as hell, had been pretty much everyone’s opinion.
It hadn’t been until they’d come across an Imagin that Yamashita had history with that things had fallen apart. Because that’s when they’d learned about his stubborn streak, when he’d childishly insisted he be the one to fight even though he didn’t have the experience the others did. He’d resisted all the other Imagin’s attempts to push him out of Nagase body, too, holding on even when Nagase tried to drive him out.
It was only after Nino and Murakami had shown up to deal with the Imagin and Nagase had collapsed, too injured to even stay transformed, that Yamashita finally realized what he’d done.
He practiced fighting everyday for months afterward, taking lessons from the other Imagins and taking breaks only when he visited Nagase in the hospital. He was already far leaner (far harder) than he had been by the time Nagase was conscious enough to recognize him, the difference obvious even in his sand and ash form.
He wasn’t the child he had been by the time Nagase got out of the hospital. All he said though was, “Please don’t hate me.”
Nagase wasn’t entirely the same himself, but one thing about him that had never changed, not even when he’d wound up getting possessed by stubborn Imagins, was how he felt about his friends. So all Nagase answered was, “Of course.”
21. Joshima’s How-To Café was unusually noisy. There were quite a few reasons for this:
1) The Evil Plan having finally been stopped, all the Imagin were there to celebrate. They were wearing animal costumes so no one wondered about the weird head on the floor feet in the air thing (and to keep the ash and sand from getting on everything), though that just left them open to the strange looks they were getting for wearing animal costumes at all. They were all banging away noisily at guitars (Gussan was actually good and Yamashita wasn’t bad… Yoko, though, was another matter) and drinking the coffee (which they all liked better than Aiba’s, freaks that they were).
2) Okura was there, too, with Aiba and Maru fussing over him like new parents. This was because he’d regressed ten years (for reasons they were all collectively not talking about), putting him at an apparent age of eight even though his mind was still eighteen. He’d taken to kicking people when he got particularly bitter about it (especially Yoko, who kept calling him Tacchon all the time), but for the most part he was happy enough, especially when being tiny and adorable got him extra helpings of food just about everywhere they ate. Joshima had certainly not been immune, giving him an enormous bowl of ramen that he was noisily slurping up.
3) In addition to not being immune to the charms of a very young Okura, Joshima seemed to have finally noticed that Nakai had been hitting on him for years, and the two of them were in the corner singing (bad) love songs (badly) to each other.
4) Mabo had given over freaking out about making out with Nagase (and apparently gotten over his freak out from having found it hot, too), because he’d hooked up with one of his former boy band mates and the two of them were just about a base hit away from having very noisy sex on the table they were (still sort of) sitting at.
5) Having not much else to do with the Imagin threat gone, Nino and Murakami had stopped by, too. They were happily bickering about what they should do with the train now that they didn’t actually need it (all while playing footsie under the table).
Nagase was just about the only quiet person in the place, sitting at the counter with his back against a wall, content to just lazily tune the guitar he’d stolen as he watched the chaos. He was still perpetually tired from having to keep four Imagin from hijacking his body whenever one of them wanted to go out, and even without the constant fighting he’d been doing before they’d won out against the Evil Plan, he still had his usual collection of aches and pains, his luck as bad as ever.
But looking out over all his friends gathered together in the place he felt the most at home, he also thought he’d never been so lucky.
Until the first guitar string snapped, anyway.