Gift fic for moogle_tey

[k8exchange_mod]

Title: It’s not over yet (Team Sunshine vs. The Vampires)
Pairing/Characters: Ryo/Maru, Kanjani8, plus Junno, Nakamaru & Shige as K8 was otherwise engaged
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: vampires (no sparkles except for Yasu’s glitter glue), explosives
Notes: Dear moogle_tey, I did a little dance when I got you as assignment. I started to write you Dye D fic but then… this happened. I am so sorry. I sincerely hope you enjoy it. <3
Summary: AU: Dye D, Wild 7 (all you need to know is: vampires and vigilantes on motorcycles), Eito Rangers
Ryo is caught between a rock and a hard place (more accurately, a serial bomber and a vampire with a plan). Not that he’s even aware of this. He’s just trying to do his job.


it’s not over yet

(Team Sunshine vs. The Vampires)

milkshake dates with Ryo’s laptop

It happened all the time.

Ryo had learned to just ignore it and get on with things.

“No, but you really need a vacation,” Maru said reproachfully, looking up at Ryo while trying to suck the last few drops of milkshake up through a bright orange straw.

“Right, yes, of course,” Ryo said absentmindedly, fingers flying over the keys, eyes glued to the screen of his laptop. A part of him knew, always knew, that dragging your work with you for coffee (or even milkshakes) with a friend wasn’t the most socially acceptable option, but he had deadlines, damn it. Maru would forgive him.

He always did.

✝ in all fairness

Yokoyama Yuu was nothing if not a fair man.

“They have to be given a sporting chance,” said Hina, whose tingly, obsessive vampire senses fixated on sports of all things, when not on the hunt for blood. As obsessions went, Yoko thought this one was very nearly as disturbing as Ohkura’s hankering after human food and roughly as useful. That is, not at all.

“Quite,” Yoko replied, steepling his fingers as he considered this. “Or rather, they have to think they have a sporting chance.” His grin was made even more disturbing by the unnervingly pointy teeth peeking out. “I think I like that better.”

Yoko subscribed to the definition of ‘fair’ as being ‘of pale skin’.

✝ sleep, advantages thereof

"Ryo-chan? Ryo-chan!” Maruyama grabbed his shoulders to shake him awake. “How many times have I told you? You’re working way too hard. This isn’t healthy anymore," said Maru, voice laced with concern and a hint of desperation. Ryo had definitively fallen asleep at his desk half an hour ago and hadn’t woken up when Maru had knocked repeatedly - and forcefully enough to almost bring the flimsy front door down.

"Hmrph," Ryo protested uselessly as Maru pulled him out of his chair, physically dragging him towards his bed. One of the scraps of closely written note paper the desk was littered with stuck stubbornly to Ryo’s cheek until they were halfway across the room, where it fluttered to the floor.

"Wasn't finished yet," Ryo barely managed to mumble accusingly, as he was swallowed by soft, warm pillows. He meant to ask what Maru was doing here at this hour, anyway, but he was too sleepy to bother.

I was just thinking about you this afternoon, was his last conscious thought before he drifted back into oblivion.

✝ backtracking, or thoughts on Maruyama this afternoon

"Probably, everyone who drives a motorcycle is a criminal," Nakamaru concluded, pushing his thick rimmed glasses back up on his nose. Ryo laughed out loud. He'd just walked into the office to catch this tail end of the conversation.

"You're just saying that because they terrify you," he teased. It was a safe enough bet; pretty much the whole world up to and including goldfish terrified Nakamaru. And was consequently a source of endless amusement to this friends. Ryo still wasn't quite sure why the man had ever decided that journalism was a good, safe career path, but there's just no helping some people.

"Anyway," he continued, "doesn't that friend of yours drive one? Tanaka, was it?"

Nakamaru made a face like he'd swallowed a lemon. "My point exactly."

Ryo laughed again. To be fair, his own experience with motorcycle enthusiasts consisted solely of Maruyama Ryuhei, who Ryo forever thought of as Maru-chan, the human equivalent of a fluffy puppy. It rather mellowed his judgement.

He really would have to tell Maru about his coworker next time he dropped by, he thought as he made his way towards the coffee machine in the back of the office. From across the room, he could still hear Nakamaru further expounding upon his theory of evil (probably man-eating) motorcycles. He sounded increasingly panicky, much to Ryo’s amusement.

He frowned at the coffee machine as he waited for the plastic cup to fill up. Maru really needed to get himself a cell phone, though, so Ryo could text him all this stupid stuff when he buggered off again to god knows where. And also to call him at two in the morning to bother him for no reason whatsoever, and all that stuff his friends should put up with to keep him amused. But Maru, annoyingly, had always pleaded a strong dislike of too much modern technology. (Technology was nothing at all like motorcycles, which had a soul, he would claim lovingly, while Ryo made gagging sounds.)

Well, whatever. Maru-chan had had his own way in this for far too long; next time he was in Tokyo, Ryo was going to drag his ass to the nearest Bic Camera come hell or high water.

“What brought this on, anyway?” he asked as he rejoined Nakamaru and… Ryo squinted, a random colleague he couldn’t quite place. Whoever he was, he looked way too perky this early in the morning, Ryo judged as he carefully sipped his scalding coffee.

“It’s them again,” Nakamaru said, tapping a fat file. “The Wild Seven.” Perky tried to look serious as he nodded along, but Ryo just rolled his eyes.

“We’ve been here before,” he told Nakamaru. “You can’t even prove they actually exist. You know, in the real world, outside of your imagination.”

Nakamaru and Perky shared a look and then Perky handed him another, slimmer file.

“Except we can,” he said. Ryo raised his eyebrows, accepting the file and leafing through it.

“Names?” he asked.

“Not yet,” Perky sighed.

(“I’m sorry, what was your name again?” Ryo interrupted. Perky blinked. “Taguchi,” he answered. “Er, we worked together on a project last year?” Ryo spent a brief, awkward moment trying to dig through the swamp that was his memory of his working life. “… Right,” he said finally, accepting it as probably true.)

“But they exist, right enough, and we know enough to know that the government is in over their head,” Taguchi finished.

Nakamaru grinned at Ryo. “You’re interested, aren’t you, Nishikido-kun?”

Ryo scoffed but, despite his best intentions, he kind of was.

Enough to have a proper look at it, anyway.

✝ why coffee is better than everything else

Maruyama had apparently invited himself to spend the night.

Ryo stumbled into the living room the next morning, on his way to his first bucket of coffee, to find the other man passed out on his couch, half covered by a thin blanket. His motorcycle helmet had been placed carefully on the coffee table.

Maru didn't stir until the sound of the coffee machine filled the small apartment.

"Ryo-chan, good morning," he yawned as he stretched, long arms and legs dangling over the edges of the ratty couch. Ryo grunted in response. He would need at least two mugs of coffee before he'd feel anything like being remotely civil.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Ryo asked finally, wrapping his hands around the steaming mug as he waited for the rice cooker to finish. Mornings were still cold this time of year. “I thought you were in Kyoto.”

“And then I came here,” Maru said and shrugged, his face a mask of innocence. That had Ryo suspicious, right there. He opened his mouth to verbally poke at Maru’s reasoning some more, but with impeccable timing, the rice cooker beeped. Ryo got up with a sigh to dump the rice in two bowls, squirting unholy amounts of mayonnaise on one of them.

“Here you go,” he mumbled, putting a bowl in front of Maru.

“Thanks, Ryo-chan,” Maru said, smiling brightly. Ryo grunted in slightly embarrassed acknowledgment.

“So, what are your plans now?” Ryo asked after a while.

Maru grinned widely, mouth full of rice. “We,” he announced, “are going on a trip!”

✝ electric light, an important advantage of

It was a truth universally acknowledged that vampires were elegant.

Well, most of the time, anyway, Yoko mentally amended, sucking on the finger he had just burned trying to light a candle.

It had been a properly gothic looking candle, too, right up until Yasu had been let loose in the Castle with a jar of glitter glue. Yoko was positive it wasn’t safe to burn and only a vague sense that, being undead, he shouldn’t care about such things, kept him from complaining.

Loudly.

And repeatedly.

Anyway, elegance. He was totally elegant as long as people were looking.

To be fair, a vampire needed to be, if he wanted to be viewed as a proper predator in these days of enlightenment (electric light had been a blow for those who counted on the fear the dead dark of the night instilled in people) and weapons of mass destruction.

In fact, as Yoko frequently told other vampires and only other vampires, the curious myth that a vampire will only stay properly dead if you stake them through the heart with a sharp piece of wood, before decapitating them, had been formulated long before the advent of, to name an example, your common machine gun. (The same holds true for the old tale about the garlic. A bottle of tomato ketchup has the same effect.)

Vampires had come a long way from the days the man on the street would be hard pressed to tell them apart from zombies or, come to that, perfectly innocent bloated corpses who were, by that very same man in the street, conscientiously staked in their graves. These days, vampires had style. In addition to well tailored suits. No glowing red eyes and permanently needlelike teeth for them. Your modern vampire was nothing if not… attractive. Yoko tasted the word with a certain amount of satisfaction.

… Except possibly Hina, he allowed. But then, Hina was an exception to really an uncomfortable amount of rules, to Yoko’s mild annoyance. The man would simply not be bossed around, and Yoko a good couple of centuries his senior, at that. It was a positive disgrace. Yoko ordered Hina to get the hell out of his Castle with alarming regularity; every time he rapped his knuckles on Yoko’s coffin in the morning to invite him to go for a run, for example.

Outside.

As this happened nearly every single day, he really had no patience anymore.

Still, Yoko felt oddly safe in the knowledge that Hina would only laugh at him. He would likely not physically drag him along (he only tried this about once a year and then got fed up with Yoko’s whining about halfway through, on a good day) and would certainly not leave the Castle for more than his jog around the grounds (now technically a public park).

Yoko never bothered to feel that badly about his more vindictive thoughts regarding his… fellow vampire, if only because Hina would hit him unprovoked and for no detectable reason at least several times a day. Might as well give him a good reason in the privacy of his own mind.

Mind you, only in the privacy of his own mind; there was absolutely no reason to add the force of justice to those blows.

But save Hina’s presence, vampires had style. They had learned the ways of style and people hadn’t even bothered to update that part of the collective consciousness tentatively titled How To Kill A Vampire So He Stays Dead.

The idiots were too busy lusting after vampires, Yoko thought with a nervous giggle. Not that, in the bad old days, there hadn’t been the occasional white throated vict - young woman who had probably left her window open on purpose, something Yoko had always rather appreciated at the time. But there was a difference between the thrill of excitement for a young woman in a boring old town where nothing ever happened, no attractive young men were readily available and people were still waiting for television to be invented, and global stupidity. Global silliness, even. You could take some personal pride in the open windows. Yoko still wasn’t sure what the appropriate emotion for the 21st century was, but so far he was settling on embarrassment.

Still, life was easier, if nothing else, and the next meal was readily available. That was a huge leap forward right there, as far as he was concerned.

Elegance begged forgiveness. Elegance begged, and he did so relish the term, admiration. He gloated until the match in his hand burned down and the tips of two more of his fingers got singed.

“Oh for the love of - !”

Blasted compulsory candles.

✝ you and whose army

Ryo should have seen that one coming, he really should have. Had he seen that one coming, he would have been able to get out of it by completely ignoring it had happened. As always.

As it was, he had not seen it coming, had spent an awkward moment blinking in utter confusion and had subsequently been bulldozered over by Maru and his Enthusiasm. Not to mention his friends Concern and Kicked Puppy Eyes. When Ryo still squirmed and tried to wheedle out of it after that onslaught, he was introduced to You’re Not Taking Proper Care Of Yourself and his brother I Know What’s Best For You.

“But I can’t go on vacation now,” Ryo whined. “There’s this thing…”

“There’s always a thing.”

“Yes, but -,”

Then again, maybe he wouldn’t have been able to get out of this one, either way. Maru was… determined.

✝ the ninja vampires association (why Hina will never be a member)

If you were going with the things everyone knew, or everyone once knew anyway, everyone knew that vampires were oddly obsessive creatures.

Granted, finding your way into an attractive young person’s bedroom - which would be locked because all who’d come before you likely wouldn’t exactly have been esteemed members of the ninja vampires association - did require a certain amount of healthy obsession.

Back in the commonsensical days, when the one thing people focused on in regards to vampires was not the esthetically pleasing way the light glinted of a pointy tooth, but rather how to put as much distance between you and said tooth as possible, trick number one in the How To Deal With Vampires manual was to mess with their obsessive compulsive tendencies. (At least, it was trick number one in the How To Deal With Vampires If You’ve Left Your Wooden Stake At Home manual.) OCD was fun for the whole family , as long as it happened to other people.

Not even technically people, at that.

“Still not sure if I’ll ever forgive them,” Subaru commented when Yoko mentioned it. He was lounging on the couch drinking something that was probably wine because it was in a wineglass. Best not to take a closer look, though.

“It’s not at all a nice experience, waking up with your mouth full of sand. It took me forever to count the blasted stuff.”

Of course, what people conveniently forgot is that a vampire’s notion of forever is rather more complex than that of people. Vampires tend to outlive you - or at least out-undead you - as well as your children, your grandchildren and so on and so forth, world without end. They’re endlessly patient and can afford to be so. This also meant that the term Best Friends Forever carried some actual weight. Sure, the sandbags had kept Subaru occupied for a couple of years, but Yoko had diligently supplied him with fresh virgins whenever necessary. (Or at least people of a virgin-esque age; the important thing was that the neck was still a pretty one.)

All in all, Yoko liked to think that vampires were disturbingly clever and to both his joy and his eternal astonishment, popular opinion tended to agree. Of course, it did all depend on which gentleman (or lady, for that matter - Yoko didn’t hang out much with lady vampires because they scared him) was after your blood. And possibly also your eternal damned soul, should you be deemed interesting enough.

Even Yoko, fiercely loyal to his… family for lack of a better word, would have to admit that a decent All You Can Eat buffet would keep Ohkura off your back long enough to catch a plane to whole new and exciting continents.

But then, in practice, Ohkura had a face that not many people seemed desperate to get several continents away from.

It would be rather more difficult, for the so inclined, to get away from a vampire like Yoko, to whom the chase was the obsession. He would even venture to say it was impossible, had it not been for the one person who had managed it.

The victim had ran and ran and ran - in the wrong direction entirely and by pure dumb luck had gotten himself bitten by Ohkura of all people. Yoko still felt a bit sore about that.

Being infinitely more optimistic, and by now rather used to his new circumstances, Hina thought it was the most hilarious thing ever.

✝ innocence, in want of a definition of

There was something about the wind in his face when he was flying -

There was something about the smell of blood. But that was a disturbing thought and Maru never did think it. If he sometimes inhaled rather more deeply than necessary, no one noticed.

There was also something about the complexity of explosives, something about their sheer force and totality of destruction and that was still a disturbing thought, but it was redeemed slightly by the fact that these days, the beautiful destruction came to those who had killed innocent people.

Maru wasn't innocent.

In fact, he wasn’t entirely sure if he counted as people.

He didn't know quite where he was in the hierarchy of those who probably deserved getting blown to bits, but he guessed it was pretty high up. The appropriate conscience soothing solution was, of course, to conclude that no one deserved to be blown to bits.

And then he found himself once again confronted with people who were actually people, ridiculously young and frighteningly uninvolved with whatever crime it was, with their brains blown out and their limbs quite... detached.

No one deserved to die like that. Least of all actual people.

So Maru fastened his helmet and loaded his guns and, for good measure, loaded his backpack with materials that could very quickly be persuaded to become explosives, and flew out onto the highway on his motorcycle.

No one deserved to die like that.

But someone had to make it happen anyway.

✝ lost and found

“Interestingly, okay, Maruyama’s right about one thing. Nishikido actually is in dire need of a vacation,” Ohkura remarked, sitting on the edge of Yoko’s desk. It was a good desk and had been for several centuries. It looked vaguely… menacing. Yoko appreciated that, so Yasu and his glitter glue and brightly coloured fabrics were banned from Yoko’s office for the rest of forever.

“No,” Yoko deadpanned. “Really? Tell me something I don’t know, please.”

“Hey! I could have some more… interesting information for you. There is something he hasn’t noticed...”

“Tacchon,” Yoko interrupted, “I’ve learned that the guy sleeps even less than I do and I don’t even technically need sleep. I fully expect him to make it to our front door, courtesy of Maruyama and our influence, and then fall over.”

Ohkura rolled his eyes. “Please. I don’t mean it in any sort of ‘poor thing, he should get some rest’ way. I mean…” He snapped his fingers trying to find the words. “I mean he’s losing his edge.”

Yoko raised an eyebrow and then shrugged. “Whatever. It’s not like any sort of edge he may have had would have helped him any. You should really have enough experience with human stupidity by now to know this,” he complained.

“This one’s not stupid,” Ohkura protested, folding his arms across his chest. “And don’t give me that look! You’ve said so yourself. Hell, it was you who ordered me to spy on him.”

“What I said was,” Yoko explained with exaggerated care, “’oh my, he is perfect vampire material.’ Never once did I say he was anywhere near intelligent. I implied quite the opposite, in fact.”

Ohkura gave him a filthy look.

“More importantly, have the preparations been made?” Yoko asked quickly.

“Yes,” Ohkura said sullenly.

“Good. Then you can go now.”

Ohkura hopped off the desk, muttering insults under his breath as he went. He slammed the door for good measure and then went to do what he knew annoyed Yoko more than anything.

Complain to Hina.

✝ powers of persuasion

If you were to tell Ryo that he should really get some rest because, no matter how good at his job he was, operating on a lack of sleep and a blood content of ninety percent caffeine wasn’t going to work out for very long, he would tell you to fuck off.

Ryo was good at telling people to fuck off.

Generally speaking.

“Ma - someone mentioned I should take a - a vacation,” Ryo managed between clenched teeth.

Nakamaru blinked up at him. “… So, do you want me to get you a dictionary?”

Ryo narrowed his eyes and for a moment seriously considered hitting his colleague over the head. You can take a man out of Osaka, but you can’t take Osaka out of the man and all that. He took a deep breath instead. He was here about a favour after all.

“No, thank you. I’ve already arranged everything with Matsumoto-san. I just need you to give me everything else you have on the Wild Seven.”

“… Huh?”

Ryo ran through that sentence again in his head. “… Please?” he added hopefully. Nakamaru snorted and shook his head.

“I mean, I thought you were going on vacation.”

“Right. Time away from the office will be the perfect opportunity to look into this some more.”

Nakamaru peered at Ryo’s face looking for any twitch, any sign that he was being sarcastic. There were none.

“Yes, okay,” he said finally. “Of course. I’ll have to call Taguchi but I can have everything ready for you at the end of the day.”

“Awesome,” Ryo said and grinned widely. It looked vaguely frightening, Nakamaru thought privately.

✝ who put Hina in charge, anyway?

Hina frowned. “Why wasn’t I told about this?”

“Yoko told me to only report my findings to him,” Ohkura said. Hina’s expression indicated that this was not the answer he was looking for.

“Listen, are we sure Nishikido’s not a vampire already?”

“Quite sure.”

“Tatsu…” Hina said, vaguely threatening. Ohkura winced as though the tsukkomi in the tone had actually happened.

“What?” he said, trying to look innocent. He wasn’t very good at it.

“You’re not telling me everything.”

Ohkura considered for a moment how to handle this situation delicately. Then he decided not to bother.

“You know, you should just ask Yoko about it.”

This time the tsukkomi connected in a very real way.

✝ Nishikido has lost his edge

Ryo disliked not being in control. While he was comfortably aware of his own competence in the necessary areas, he was deeply suspicious of other people’s.

Hell, he had trouble just letting someone else drive. He felt completely justified in forever fighting for the driver’s seat like his life depended on it, because it probably did.

All in all, he’d fully expected to discover whole new levels of terror on the back of a motorcycle. (He had tried to argue with Maru about their means of transportation. The trip was apparently for Ryo’s sake, so his opinion had to count for something, right? Right. It had been like arguing with a brick wall.)

They were speeding along deserted country roads at - Ryo felt - at least twice the speed limit and despite a constant preoccupation with the subject, Ryo still wasn’t sure why he wasn’t terrified.

So far he had narrowed it down to two things and he didn’t really want it to be either of those. His mind was a traitorous place.

It might have something to do with how Maru seemed to change. He no longer looked happy and goofy and - well, quite frankly ready for a mental institution. With the motorcycle had come waves of confidence and a knowing little grin and Ryo didn’t quite know what to do with it, but it made something inside him feel all warm and shivery.

It could also simply be that pressed against Maru’s back wasn’t the worst place Ryo could think of being.

He resolutely stopped that train of thought right there, and broke up the rails while he was at it, lest he started throwing up in his mouth at his own lameness. If this was what a little physical contact could do to him, maybe he should hang out with people more, instead of just interviewing them behind the safety of a microphone. It was obviously something he had to get used to, that was all.

That decision made, he turned his thoughts to the comparative safety of the Wild Seven case. He’d gotten partway to reviewing the information Nakamaru had given him yesterday, but then Maru had come to bother him and Ryo had had to be really sneaky about the files. He doubted whether Maru would approve of his plans to bring his work along.

The problem was, he thought, staring unseeingly at the trees flashing by, that he’d made enough headway yesterday night to realize that some of his notes were missing. Important notes. Sure, he’d written them while mostly comatose, but he did that all the time. He was still positive they had existed at some point.

He’d asked Maru, as casually as possible, whether he’d seen them, but no such luck. Oh well. He’d have to tackle the pile of papers (stuffed into his bag in place of two changes of clothes) again tonight and hope it would turn up again on the back of something.

✝ thieving starts with lying

“So Nishikido doesn’t realize it’s missing?” Yasu asked. Ohkura shook his head.

“I wonder what it said…” Yasu continued.

“Did you take it?” Subaru asked practically.

“No!” Ohkura replied indignantly. “Anyway, why would I?”

Subaru shrugged. “I don’t know, you were spying on him.”

“Yoko made me do it,” Ohkura muttered. They all three looked up at the heavy wooden door to Yoko’s office. Shouts were coming from inside.

“Think we should go and rescue Yoko from Hina’s wrath?” Subaru suggested, half jokingly.

“Nah, he brought it on himself.”

“Yasu?”

“I’m sure Hina-chan won’t actually hurt him.”

They considered this.

“Well, I mean, it’s not like he can die.”

“More importantly,” Subaru started, after the noise of a particularly loud crash had passed, “where’s the information now?”

“If Nishikido doesn’t have it, and we don’t have it…” Yasu paused and glanced at Ohkura in confirmation, who nodded. “That leaves just one option, doesn’t it?”

“Certainly,” Ohkura agreed carefully.

There was a screech from the other side of the door - Yoko had a good voice for screeching - and then the sound of wings.

“Didn’t Yoko say he’d given up the turning into a bat gig?” Subaru said conversationally. “He always complains it gives him a headache.”

“He probably had the headache already,” Ohkura said. Subaru nodded thoughtfully.

“Back to the topic at hand, though, what would Maruyama want with a newspaper man’s notes?” Yasu asked. Subaru and Ohkura glanced at each other.

“… Maruyama makes bombs,” Subaru said levelly, gaze fixed on the wall opposite.

Yasu turned to stare at him. He blinked several times. “… Oh,” he said finally.

“Nishikido is looking for the bomber,” Ohkura added and Yasu whipped round to stare at him.

“What?”

“Well, not only the bomber, several people with guns as well… I found them, incidentally. I thought about doing something about them, figured that it might help things with Nishikido along, but they tried to shoot me, so I left.”

“Will he even make it here alive?”

“I hope so. It would really fuck with our plans if he doesn’t. Yoko keeps insisting on finding someone appropriate, whatever that means. He’s never letting me live biting Hina-chan down.”

“I’m still not quite sure what kind of person would be appropriate vampire material,” Subaru admitted. And privately he thought that if they ever did find such a person, they’d better leave them alone.

“Me neither,” Ohkura said. “But I’m guessing anyone who keeps up with the football matches is out.”

“But why wasn’t I told any of this?” Yasu interrupted, wailing.

“What are you talking about?” Ohkura asked, bewildered. “Yoko bitches about it every evening.”

“I mean, about Nishikido hanging around someone who might blow him up!”

Subaru shrugged. “We wanted to preserve your innocence?” he hazarded. Yasu raised one eyebrow and gave him a Look.

“Yeah, I don’t know. You can have a go at Yoko once Hina’s done with him, how’s that?”

✝ not technically a castle so they named it the Castle

It was getting dark when they arrived at the hotel where they’d be spending the night, before, Ryo presumed, continuing their journey to the middle of nowhere. It was a nice hotel.

Actually, nice didn’t even begin to cover it, Ryo thought as he stared up at the massive building in awe. The damn thing had turrets, for god’s sake.

There was a man in uniform waiting at the end of the gravel driveway. The driveway had taken them like five minutes, even at Maru’s breakneck speed.

He looked at them with some annoyance as they came to halt. Ryo reached up to take his helmet off.

“Yes?” he asked.

“It’s just, I’m technically here to open the car door.”

Ryo stared at the man for a moment, then at Maru, who’d also taken his helmet off. Maru shrugged.

“You can park it, if that makes you feel better,” he said hesitantly, as though he didn’t fully approve of anyone touching his bike, despite the suggestion. The man, however, nodded briskly and grinned widely. He had a very toothy grin.

“I’ll take good care of it,” he promised.

“This is quite a place,” Ryo commented as they wandered towards the large front doors.

“I know, right?” Maru enthused. “I just heard about it recently. Completely by accident too!”

The door was opened for them just as they’d reached the top step.

And that was when everything went wrong.

The man at the door smiled at them - although smirked would be the better word, Ryo thought - and Maru went rigid beside him. The man ignored him and addressed Ryo. Something in his eyes sparkled.

“My name is Yokoyama. I’m the… manager of this establishment,” he said, bowing briefly.

“We came to the wrong place,” Maru blurted out, no longer rigid but almost vibrating with nervous energy.

“What? No we didn’t.”

“Yes, we definitely did. We should go.”

“I want to sleep,” Ryo said stubbornly, probably the first time in his life he’d uttered the sentiment. Sure, the hotel manager’s smirk was unnerving at best, but Ryo hardly thought that was any reason to run out into the night.

Maru looked at him blankly for a moment. “Ryo-chan…”

“Let’s be realistic, there isn’t another hotel for miles and miles.”

“This is very true,” Yokoyama agreed. “We’re properly out in the country, you know. Just us here.” He smiled faintly.

“… Fine.”

“I knew you’d see sense. Ah, Shibutani here will take your bags…”

Ryo glanced sideways at Maru, who’d made a faint noise like he was going to pass out. In the next moment, he seemed to pull himself together again, though.

Ryo was really seeing a whole new side of Maru on this trip. Okay, so the confident side had been… exciting, but now he looked like a bad cocktail of nerves and danger and Ryo wondered whether Maru normally took any medicine he needed to be reminded of…

“Let’s get a room together,” Maru said suddenly.

“Huh?” Ryo said stupidly.

“Let’s get a room together,” Maru tried again, this time with a blinding smile. Ryo could feel his insides melting into a puddle of mush. Unfortunately for Maru, the Ryo who felt like he had to protect his inner puddle of mushiness from showing, was even more difficult than everyday Ryo.

“Are we suddenly on a budget trip?” he asked, definitely more grumpy than was necessary.

“No, I just thought it’d be…” he started and Ryo’s puddle of mush was starting to steam.

“I’m sorry,” Yokoyama interrupted. “I’m afraid we don’t have double rooms.”

“What? In a hotel this size?” Ryo asked. He was treated to an annoyed little smile.

“Quite. I am so sorry.”

“It’s fine, we’ll have two singles,” Ryo said, ignoring Maru who looked like he wanted to physically drag him away.

“Good. I do hope you have a very pleasant stay.”

✝ vampires mostly don’t actually drink wine

“Is it just me or is everyone in this place just a bit… well, creepy as fuck?” he whispered to Maru, leaning forward over the dinner table. The waiter’s smile had looked friendly at first but after a while, Ryo was starting to get the feeling that something was off. Maru sighed deeply.

“I told you we should leave.”

“You’d get us killed on that road in the dark.”

“It’d be quick and painless,” Maru said morosely.

Ryo shot him a look. “You know I’m including you in the creepyfucks category.”

“Is everything okay?” the waiter asked. He was very handsome, Ryo thought. He also looked vaguely familiar. He wondered if he’d ever seen him around the office. Though he wouldn’t know what business a waiter in a hotel in the country would have with journalists.

He also hovered around their table a lot because they were the only guests there. Ryo almost filed that under ‘suspicious’ but then he remembered it was the middle of the week and not even near a holiday. It wasn’t that weird a hotel so remote wouldn’t have many guests. Maru’s crazy was just making him jumpy.

“Everything’s fine,” he answered cheerfully, returning the waiter’s bright smile.

Ryo had once been told he looked creepy when he smiled very widely; time to fight fire with fire.

✝ a night in the Castle

They’d been taken up to their rooms by a cheerful blond who had introduced himself as Yasuda. Ryo wouldn’t have found him very creepy, hadn’t he already decided that everyone here was creepy.

He stared up at the ceiling in the silent dark. He would have gone to sleep or, more likely, taken out the files, except…

Let’s get a room together.

There was only one reason people got a room together, right?

He was lying there waiting, listening for the creak of the wooden flooring, willing Maru to sneak in. It had been an hour and he’d just figured that if any sneaking was to happen tonight, it probably had to be him, when slowly and very carefully, the door creaked open. Ryo tensed in anticipation. He was already groping for the bedside lamp, when the dark shape jumped on top of him with a screech.

Since Ryo’s basic state of being was as a big bundle of tightly coiled nerves, he’d hit it over the head with the lamp before he even remembered to scream.

When he did finally scream, because his attacker was still moving after having been hit twice over the head, the door was kicked in and another shouting figure jumped into the room within seconds.

Ryo screamed some more; he felt he was entitled to a good panic. There was just enough light coming from the candles in the hallway to silhouette the newcomer - who was quite obviously carrying a rather big gun.

Then there was a bang like a thousand fireworks and a whimpering from the figure now mostly on the floor but still insistently trying to claw its way up Ryo’s bed.

Somehow, something that could survive being shot like that was a lot more terrifying than the shooter. It didn’t fit right within the laws of nature. Ryo was too terrified to form a coherent sentence and even if he could, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to know what the thing was. But the door had swung further open again.

The light glinted off a pointy tooth.

Ryo was pretty sure normal teeth did not reflect the light.

And, more to the point, weren’t quite so big.

He rammed the lamp in the creatures face, which had already gotten way too close for comfort. It made a pained noise and before it could recover, Ryo had jumped out of the bed, dodged the man with the gun, who seemed to be more interested in the - the vampire, his panicked mind supplied, anyway, and ran out into the hallway.

Right into the waiter’s arms.

The waiter smiled widely, teeth bared, and Ryo nearly fainted on the spot.

“He does this every time, you know,” Ohkura said conversationally, casually putting his hands on Ryo’s elbows to steady him. Ryo made a small, desperate noise in the back of his throat that could possibly be construed as ‘what, please?’. If you really, really wanted to.

“He keeps chasing people away and I just have to hang around and they run - quite literally - into my waiting arms.”

“Really?” Ryo said weakly.

“Well, when I say every time, I really mean it’s happened once before,” Ohkura said. “But it’s been years and he’s never going to let me live it down.”

“… Out of interest, does this mean you’re not going to bite my head off?” Ryo asked hoarsely.

“Bite your head off? I wouldn’t dream of it!” Ohkura claimed, eyes wide. “We’re vampires, you know, I don’t know how detailed your knowledge of European folklore is…”

“Not very detailed,” Ryo admitted, subtly looking for a way out.

“Ah, well, what you basically need to know is that we drink blood.”

Ryo only managed another small, panicky noise. He had bigger problems than trying to appear more eloquent than a dying mouse.

“It’s a lot less gory than biting a head off,” Ohkura prompted. Ryo looked at him blankly.

“Oddly enough, that’s not very comforting,” he said, before, with the power of surprise on his side, he managed to wrench himself out of Ohkura’s casual grip and run like hell.

Ohkura sighed. He really couldn’t be bothered to give chase.

“You do realize you’re in a house full of vampires in the middle of nowhere?” he yelled after him.

Ryo kept running. All he had to do, he told himself firmly, is find Maru-chan.

✝ code of honour

Hina was not amused.

He was in possession of all the facts and now, also, a machine gun.

Vampires - no, Yoko amended, Hina was fearsome enough as he was, but a machine gun always manages to add that little extra.

“Watch where you point that thing!” Yoko yelled. He was pressing a bag of ice on one of his eyes.

“Lie still, please,” Yasu admonished. He was bandaging Yoko’s torso. Yoko pouted. He had a very impressive pout.

“Just because I don’t die so easily, doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt,” he complained.

“It will hurt less if you lie still.”

“It was your own fault,” Hina said harshly.

“… Don’t you feel even a little sorry for me?”

“Not really.”

The pout was back with a vengeance. Hina sighed.

“Look, Yoko, I know it’s hard to keep up with things and you don’t really get out much except to… eat.” He frowned. “But there are things you can and things you cannot do.”

“Since when is sneaking into a virgin’s bedroom something vampires are not allowed?”

There was a brief silence while the others looked at each other.

“Look,” Subaru said at last. “It doesn’t matter much to me. I have an imagination. I’ve been known to accept a stretching of the truth on several occasions… But let’s be real here, the kid’s not a virgin.”

“Person of a virgin-appropriate age,” Yoko bit back. He lay back and sulked.

“The point I was trying to make,” Hina said, “was that it wasn’t very nice to Maruyama-kun.”

“He shot me!” Yoko protested, jumping up and causing Yasu to throw up his hands in despair.

“Yes, but you were in bed with his… You know, his… Okay, so I’m not sure what they are exactly, but you knew about Maruyama-kun.”

“But I had a plan,” Yoko said petulantly.

“Which failed, by the way,” Subaru said helpfully, patting him on the back.

✝ the rock and the hard place

A part of him hadn’t really expected to find Maru. Well, he hadn’t expected it to be this easy, anyway.

“Are you okay?” he asked dumbly. Maru was sitting on the bottom step of a stone staircase twisting up into one of the towers. Apart from Maru, the floor they were on looked empty. Maru looked up at him and gave him a pale smile.

“I’m fine.”

Ryo nodded. He didn’t quite know how to put this nightmare into words. “There are vampires here,” he said, sitting down next to Maru.

“I know.”

“Also a man with a gun.”

“Ah. Yes. Um. That was me, actually.”

Ryo half turned to stare at him. “Oh. Thanks, I think.”

“No problem. The… vampires have it now, though.”

“What happens now?” Ryo asked. If Maru had had a gun, maybe he had a plan as well.

“Nothing good.”

“If we can just make it outside, we can get away on your bike…” Ryo suggested.

“They can fly.”

“How fast?”

“Very fast and without tiring. They can follow someone forever. Quite literally, too. They’ve probably been following you for a while now, to tell you the truth.”

“You know a lot about this,” Ryo said suspiciously. Maru shrugged.

“Can we agree everything is going to go horribly wrong, whatever we do?”

“Personally, I like to stay optimistic, if it’s all the same to you.”

“There can be no good outcome to this,” Maru said flatly. Then he sighed. “That’s the case, so I might as well tell you everything.”

“I like to be told everything. I approve of that part. But I’m really not resigned to dying just yet.”

“Oh, they won’t kill you. They wouldn’t have gone to this much trouble just to kill you. They want to… make you one of them.”

“Oh. Well, that’s not disturbing at all,” Ryo said, making a face. Then a slow, icy suspicious crawled up his spine.

“Maru?”

“Yes?”

“Did they bite you?” he asked, voice hollow. Maru was silent for a while and the horror of the thought gripped at Ryo’s throat. In the face of this, all he could do was grab Maru’s hand and squeeze until his knuckles turned white. Maru took a deep breath.

“Two hundred years ago,” he said. Ryo stared. Then he had to snatch his hand back and put his head between his knees because he was afraid he might throw up. Maru rubbed his back.

“You’re a vampire?”

“Yes.” Maru hesitated. “The thing is, I tried not to be.”

“Okay. That’s good, right?”

“Not really. Although, to tell you the truth, I haven’t figured out which is worse yet.”

“But you’re the nicest person I know!” Ryo blurted out. Maru said nothing. He reached into his shirt pocket and took out a much folded piece of paper. He unfolded it and smoothed it out before handing it to Ryo.

Ryo stared at it. It was closely written notepaper. It was his own handwriting; notes from the files Nakamaru had given him the first time. At the top of the paper was written ‘Pyro’ in large letters, twice underlined.

It contained quite a lot of information on explosions that had happened.

Quite a lot of explosions, for that matter.

“You?” he just managed to whisper, because he needed to be absolutely sure. Maru nodded.

What happens now?

Nothing good.

The paper crumpled in his fist. He had never been so scared in his life. He took a deep breath - did vampires breathe? He wasn’t sure - and turned to Maru.

“I believe.” He paused, because his voice did something funny. “Vampires are the better option.”

✝ the only option

If forced to describe the experience in a word, the word would be… uncomfortable. As far as penetration went, Ryo decided he preferred the sexual variety. This felt oddly like having your blood drawn at the hospital, with the added spine-chilling factor that the needlelike teeth were puncturing his neck, which was really a way too important body part.

Fuck, he was going to die, wasn’t he?

He laughed nervously because there were possibly tears in his eyes and he was going to die, he was going to die.

Then Maru put his arms around him in an awkward embrace and it was slightly less bad. Ryo relaxed, just a little bit. Who knows. He might not die.

In the end, he did appear to still be alive and even breathing and, when all was said and done, he did like Maru a lot better than any nurse who’d ever stuck a needle in his arm.

Even so, he was never going to do that again, and Maru better cuddle with him for the rest of the evening without saying a word.

✝ seven

Hina had loaned Ryo a suit. It was the kind of suit you always imagined vampires would wear, so he was duly surprised when it turned out they actually did. It included a redlined cape, even.

“Tradition,” Yoko had explained in a word.

It wasn’t so bad. The vampires were actually pretty nice once you got to know them and ignored their eating habits. They weren’t actually that creepy.

Okay, Subaru was still that creepy, especially when he stared, but even now Ryo couldn’t imagine ever being creeped out by Ohkura or Yasu. They all got along swimmingly.

In point of fact, Ryo seemed to be blending in better than Maru.

“He lived here before, but he must have left long ago,” Hina told Ryo. “Me and Yasu had never heard about him, until just before you came.”

Maru moped off and on. He didn’t seem to dislike the vampires, some nights he could joke along with them and have staring contests with Subaru and he seemed happier than Ryo had ever seen him. And when dawn came the two of them went to bed together and those were the best days.

Other days, Maru moped and Ryo had never seen anything so depressing in his life.

Then the day came when actual vampire business was to be discussed. Yoko was incredibly happy because there were seven of them now.

“That’s a magic number, that is. We just have to train you up a bit and then there’s no end to how powerful we can become!” he told Ryo enthusiastically, because the others had already the story ad nauseum and Ryo was the only one left who would listen. Eternity, Ryo gathered, could get boring pretty quick.

Maru had left the room. Ryo frowned.

“I think Maru doesn’t like seeing vampires too powerful,” he said vaguely. He was still trying to make sense of Maru and he wasn’t sure how successful he was.

“We’re no worse than people, you know,” Yoko said defensively.

“Exactly. There’s sure to be people worse than us,” Hina agreed confidently.

“Hmm.”

✝ how it ended

Maru cared for Ryo with a fierceness that frightened him a little. It was the reason he’d never been able to stop going to see him.

And no matter how long he’d been gone, the vampires of the Castle were the best friends he’d ever had in this undead existence.

That was not the problem. The problem was that Maru had wanted to live. He hated being undead. It wasn’t living; he was unnatural and, most worryingly, evil. They were all unnatural and evil.

But life was something they would never be able to get back.

“Maru-chan? Where are you?” Ryo called out.

“Down here, I’ll be up in a minute!” he called back.

Fortunately, there was a third option, he thought as he calmly set the last timer.

Then he climbed upstairs to hold Ryo for seven and a half more minutes.

✝ 200X, Eight City

There was silence.

“Oh,” Shige said after a while. “I see.”

He raised his camera to snap a few pictures. The elderly journalist who had brought him here nodded despondently.

“Quite.”

“So that’s why it’s called Eight City around here?” Shige asked, staring at the giant figure of eight burned into the grass. The rubble of a collapsed - no, it had exploded, hadn’t it? - house still littered the ground even thought it had been oh so many years ago.

“Exactly. The reporter at the time… Ah, Taguchi was his name, I don’t know if you’ve ever met him… No, I believe he moved to Korea a few years back… He thought it looked like the number eight. The name stuck.” He coughed. “Personally, I always thought it looked more like an infinity sign. Especially as seen from the road, you understand.”

Shige nodded, carefully picking his way through the debris to get a closer look.

“Nakamaru-san,” he started hesitantly.

“Hm?”

“You investigated the criminal organization called the Wild Seven back then, didn’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“… Could it have been the Wild Eight?”

Nakamaru smiled like he was trying to suppress laughter he was too tired for. “It was a theory at the time, yes. Brought forth by the very same Taguchi, in fact. I think he mostly wanted it to be true because he would appreciate the joke, to tell you the truth. Not a very inspiring sense of humour, he had.”

“Didn’t one of the Wild Seven die in the explosion?” Shige asked, frowning.

“Ah, you have done your research,” Nakamaru said calmly. “Yes. Well. They did find a motorcycle here at the scene that matched what little photographic material we’d managed to find… It apparently concerned a known bomber, which would… make a certain amount of sense.”

“Could the bike have done…” Shige waved at the immense figure on the ground.

Nakamaru pursed his lips. “When I say they found it… I mean, they found it in about two dozen different places.”

“Ah.”

“Exactly. Besides, no track marks would still be here after all this time. It must just be some kind of… freak accident.” He shrugged and sighed in the way of someone who had spent far too many years of his life thinking about this and has had to conclude that there simply is no solution to be found.

Shige nodded awkwardly. He felt rather sorry for dragging Nakamaru-san here, so close to his retirement, but Shige had a tendency of letting his curiosity run away with him. And it wasn’t like it was completely unwarranted. Lately, a number of criminals on the run had come to sticky and, to Shige far more worryingly, unknown ends. And then the rumors had started.

“Do you think it’s the Wild Seven again?” Shige asked, clutching his camera tightly and scanning the mess around him for something of interest. Something had caught his eye just now, a sort of - twinkle.

Nakamaru let out a short, sharp laugh. “Of course not. They’d be old men by now. Copycats,” he said dismissively. “Besides…”

Shige looked up from his search for the twinkle, curiosity piqued by the hint of hesitance.

“If it had been the Wild Seven, we wouldn’t be here because we’d know nothing.”

“You found things out, back then,” Shige said. “Eventually.”

“Bits. Pieces. In the end we knew nothing,” Nakamaru said shortly. There was a strange, hard look on his face and Shige had to bite his tongue. Almost. He’d almost asked, before his brain could interfere. Who else died? Who else died here?

He turned his gaze back to the rubble to avoid embarrassment. And there it was again; something caught the light.

Shige stepped over the low remains of a collapsed stone wall.

It was a helmet.

He edged closer and zoomed in his camera; a motorcycle helmet to be exact. It was amazingly intact. It was freakishly intact when he thought about it. The blast didn’t seem to have harmed it.

It was covered in glitter.

In his mind’s eye, Shige saw a pot of glitter explode.

No. Don’t be ridiculous, he told himself. It was an old motorcycle helmet and yes, that was something Shige would have liked to discover. But it was silly to believe this could be authentic. Most likely, some kids had dumped it here when they were… vandalizing, or doing whatever kids on motorcycles do. He reached out to pick it up.

“Ouch!”

“Be careful. There are sharp bits, you can cut yourself,” Nakamaru said mildly and without much apparent concern that his warning came rather late. The years had done wonders for Nakamaru’s nerves, at least.

“Thanks,” Shige muttered while sucking on his finger.

There was dust in the air. Both hands occupied, he rubbed at his eyes with his sleeve.

“I think there’s a storm coming,” Nakamaru said, looking at the far sky. The wind was starting to pick up. The newspaper page Nakamaru had been holding was ripped from his hand and blown into the air. He made a grasp for it, but it was too late. “Oh well. We’d better get back, I’d hate to get caught in the open like this.”

“Right,” Shige said, glancing back at the helmet one last time. A few drops of blood had splattered on the glittery surface. Shige half reached out to wipe them off but - well, he didn’t want the sleeve of his jacket to get covered in glitter and more importantly, there might be more of the traitorous nails sticking out.

Anyway, it wasn’t like it mattered, he thought as he stepped back over the rubble to rejoin Nakamaru.

“Ugh, I’m bleeding all over the place.”

“I’ve got a first aid kit in the car.”

The air was getting dense with dust.

✝ how it began

Hina picked himself up and dusted himself off. He looked around briefly. Then he reached out and hit Yoko over the head.

“Ow!”

“We’re not dead!”

“Really? Really? That’s - no, honestly, that’s what you choose to be angry about?”

“… You might have a point,” Hina admitted reluctantly, letting his hand drop to his side. He looked around for someone else to blame, but Ryo had gotten there first.

“You killed us! You actually killed us!” he fumed. Maru had the decency to look embarrassed at least. Ryo pushed him and he stumbled a few steps backwards, almost falling over the helmet on the ground.

“You killed me!” Ryo yelled. Ryo hadn’t had much experience as a vampire yet. Dying for the first time was never very pleasant. Dying for the last time possibly wasn’t, either, but no one had ever come back to complain about that. Ryo was confused and hurt and very, very angry.

“Why?” he asked and something in his voice broke. The others, though in various states of coming to terms with having bodies again, looked away in embarrassment at other interesting things like, oh, the sky. Maru looked studiously at the ground for a few moments before looking up and meeting Ryo’s gaze.

“Because we’re vampires,” he said in a small voice. He took a deep breath. “We’re not very nice people. Possible not people, in fact,” he added.

“That doesn’t mean we deserved to get blown to bits!” He balled his hands into fists. He really wanted to punch something right now, preferably body parts belonging to Maru.

“We didn’t really die?” Maru offered tentatively.

Ryo was in his face before he could blink, fists curled into his collar. “But you thought we would,” he growled.

“Okay, so that was possibly my mistake. I thought that…” Yoko muttered sheepishly and Hina hit him.

Maru didn’t deny it. His gaze was fixed firmly on the ground again. Ryo wanted to shake him and shout at him and uselessly threaten to blow him up again until he showed any sort of response.

Yasu appeared behind him and lay a comforting hand on his arm.

“Calm down, Ryo-chan,” he said gently. “I’m sure Maru did… what he thought was right.”

“Misguided and insane though it was,” Ohkura added.

What Ryo really wanted to do, after several decades spent as dust because the person he might possibly like more than anyone else has murdered him, was sit down and cry.

“Why did you do it?” he asked again, voice low.

“Because we’re vampires,” Maru repeated.

“No, not that,” Ryo said harshly. “Why did you bite me?”

Maru hesitated. “Because sometimes I do feel like I am a person.”

“… And other times you want to blow everything to bits?”

“Yes,” Maru said. It sounded more like a sigh.

Ryo spent some time thinking of an appropriate response. He decided on, “You have issues.”

“I just wanted to start over,” he mumbled. Ryo stared at him. Oh, he’d wanted to start over plenty of times. It had never occurred to him to blow up the world as he knew it to do so.

“Well. Why don’t we? Start over, I mean,” Hina interrupted, in a practical tone of voice. He’d picked up a piece of grubby paper and was reading it with some interest. Yoko was peeking over his shoulder.

“What do you mean? We can’t just start over. I mean, we did bad things…”

“I never did anything bad,” Ryo muttered in protest. Ohkura raised a questioning eyebrow.

“I never drank anyone’s blood, anyway!”

“Only because you never got the chance…”

“So? My argument still stands.”

“But none of it matters, you see, we died,” Yoko pointed out.

“And then came back to life,” Subaru added.

“Can’t get a more perfect new beginning than that, really,” Hina commented. “Here look at this.”

“A newspaper?” Ryo asked, curious despite himself.

“The front page, anyway.”

Ryo’s eyes automatically drifted towards the date. Something inside him squirmed unpleasantly.

“Oh.”

“We’ve been out for quite a bit,” Subaru commented with a laugh. He’d had more time to get used to losing a few decades here and there than Ryo.

“Look at the main article, though,” Hina insisted. “Looks like Tokyo is having to deal with something worse than vampires.”

“Criminals,” Maru mumbled, craning to read the article too.

“Definitely worse than vampires,” Hina declared confidently. “Here, they’ve murdered people for no reason at all.”

Maru shrugged. He wasn’t quite as confident about which was worse than the other. But it didn’t matter, either. No matter how you twisted it, he was both.

Ryo glanced at him. Then he sighed and reached out his hand, carefully curling his fingers around Maru’s.

“Right!” Yoko said from behind them. “We should go and stop them!”

Something hardened in Maru’s face, almost imperceptibly but Ryo was paying close attention. He tightened his grip on Maru’s hand.

Yoko wasn’t paying such close attention, but he’d known Maru for so long that he didn’t need to anymore. He clapped him on the shoulder.

“Not… quite like that,” he said gently. He’d picked up the helmet and was now carefully turning it over in his hands. He wondered if it had been Maru’s - no, no, it had probably been Ryo’s, his mind supplied. Maru would have made sure that one would have been near indestructible. Yasu’s glitter glue had exploded all over it, too. Yoko heaved a little sigh. This meant the glitter glue couldn’t easily be destroyed either.

Oh well, you couldn’t have everything.

He became aware of eyes on him.

“This time around…” he said slowly, “we’ll be the heroes.”

And with lightening speed he put the helmet on before Hina could smack him.

“Hah?” Hina shouted incredulously, instead.

“Superheroes,” Yoko clarified. “We’d be good at that.”

“We’d be awful at that,” Ohkura disagreed calmly.

“Superheroes..?” Maru tried weakly.

“Forces of good! Saving the world from all evil! You know we have powers,” Yoko announced cheerfully. Maru glanced at Ryo, who shrugged.

“I wanted to be a superhero when I was a kid,” he said. “And it’s probably better than waiting for you to try and kill me again.”

“I promise to never kill you so you stay dead,” Maru mumbled, blushing fiercely. Ryo made a face like he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not.

“Let’s just… keep you away from explosives, how’s that?” he said, squeezing Maru’s hand.

“Right.” They shared a small smile.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Ohkura commented, rolling his eyes and Hina smacked them both for being stupid and Ohkura for being cheeky.

“If we’re going to be superheroes, we’re going to need a name,” Yasu said thoughtfully, while Subaru was starting a fight with Yoko over the helmet.

“We’ll be the Eight Rangers,” Yoko declared triumphantly, managing to keep Subaru an arm’s length away.

They considered this.

“I know you’ve been out of it for a while, but there’s only seven of us,” Ohkura said finally.

Yoko shrugged. “What has that got to do with anything? We all exploded and that was what was left,” he said, pointing to the immense burn mark.

“Eight is just another word for infinity,” he started knowledgeably.

“No it isn’t,” Ryo interrupted.

“Shut up. Like I said, eight is just another word for infinity, as you can see if you would just look at the remains of our greatly exaggerated deaths,” he said, gesturing again towards the infinity sign burned into the earth. “And infinity, gentlemen, suit us absolutely perfectly.”

✝ epilogue

The Wild Seven had not been arrested, as such. Or been put in whatever custody the Eight Rangers were allowed to put people in, for that matter. However, their existence had been proven indisputably; the existence of the organization, beyond the individuals of the time. And several government officials had been apprehended.

The Eight Rangers weren’t official policemen, that much was certain, but they certainly got things done. People liked that. At the same time, the ill fitting and brightly coloured suits made them seem… well, perfectly harmless, to be honest.

Superheroes. Nakamaru had wanted to become a superhero when he was a child. Hadn’t everyone? But over the course of long years of… trying very hard to at least be a good journalist, he’d given up believing any such things existed. Now, he was actually going to interview one.

Originally, the younger journalists had vied for the chance; it would make their career, they had argued. But this was his life; the Wild Seven had finally come to an end.

He looked down at his notes, the information one of his juniors had gathered in advance. The superhero - ranger? - in the yellow suit, had kindly agreed to be interviewed. The notes helpfully pointed out that the man’s real name was Nishikino Tetsuro.

There was the sound of footsteps approaching. Nakamaru kept his eyes on the notes for a few extra moments, speed reading his way through the last page.

“Ah, Nishikino-san, thank you for - ”

He looked up.