fic for natsunonamae (1/5)
For: natsunonamae
From: 64907
Title: Ghosts of a Future Lost
Pairing/Focus: Matsumoto Jun/Ninomiya Kazunari, Nino & Arashi
Rating: R
Warnings: Minor character death, alien invasion
Summary: There are different kinds of monsters.
Notes: Dear natsunonamae, you listed a Pacific Rim AU in your sign-up, but this is only partially inspired by that and probably not what you had in mind. I hope this is still enjoyable for you. Title is from one track in Requiem for a Dream’s OST. All my love to B whose suggestions made this a lot better, and to the mod for being fantastic!
There are different kinds of monsters.
There are those you grow up thinking they're lurking under your bed, only coming out when you're properly asleep. There are those which come out of nowhere, those you see in other people in the absence of humanity, and there are some who live inside you. These, Nino understands.
Then they came from the sky.
Nino doesn't remember how. All he remembers was being shuffled to the nearest evacuation center and taking the longest ride at the back of a truck, one that took him away as far from the capital as possible. He didn't ask many questions at that time because nobody had any answers.
He was out of Tokyo when first wave broke out, and in a matter of hours, Tokyo was declared lost. When the truck driver turned on the radio for any piece of news, all they got was how Tokyo now lay in a state of debris and ruin, and whatever destroyed the capital was still rampaging there, the national air force not standing a chance.
"They came from the sky," the stuttering voice of the radio announcer said. They lost her voice in deafening static when they got too far, and it was then Nino realized that Tokyo Tower was now a remnant of the past. It probably sat as a pile of rubble, now indistinguishable as a former icon of Japan.
They didn't get very far when they began hearing the monstrous roars followed by the crushing thumps that rattled the very ground, and when Nino bravely lifted the flap covering the truck to see, he thought that Tanaka Tomoyuki's famous creation had come to life, except this one had luminescent skin and equally luminescent eyes. It had plenty; Nino couldn't remember how many eyes he saw on the thing, but each looked like it had the blood of the gods inside them, like nothing could stop it and nothing could win against it.
It looked like the embodiment of the wrath of god reaping the realm of mankind in god's stead, and Nino had to turn away and pull the flap down when a child's mother begged him to not look outside anymore. They didn't ask what he saw despite the howling continuously sounding like booming thunder and as constant as the flashes of lightning in a fierce storm, and even if they did ask what it was, Nino knew he wouldn't have the heart nor the ability to tell them.
It was something out of this world, something he had only seen in the numerous games he played and mangas he read, something that shouldn't be possible at all. It was the beginning of the end, and as the truck sped away, carrying the hopes of almost thirty people that they would remain unnoticed till they reached their yet unknown destination, Nino knew this was the beginning of mankind’s last stand.
--
Monsters, they called them. When Nino arrived in the evacuation facility, somewhere in an abandoned tower in Shimane, that was what they were called. He had to walk past a couple of people claiming they saw the monster with their very own eyes and that Tokyo wasn’t the only city which experienced an attack. He had to listen to continuous whispers that the entire globe was experiencing similar panic, that this was something the leaders of the world never prepared themselves for.
When he had to register his name, he found her then. He was wondering if she got away from Tokyo safely, but there had been no time to check and no way to know. The phone lines didn’t work, the power system in Tokyo was no longer functional, and he had to cling to nothing but hope that she made it out once the emergency evacuation procedures began.
“What were those things?” Riisa asked him then, and Nino couldn’t tell his sister anything. He was older than her by three minutes and she looked up to him for answers ever since, even when he started telling her white lies just for the fun of seeing her devastated face once she found out the truth.
Nino could see his face looking back at him in combined wonder and fear, only that her features were softer than his and that made her alarm and worry more evident than his own. Still, it felt as if he was looking at the mirror that showed what he was trying his best to hide, and he had to look away as he signed his name and offered his wrist for a number tag.
589. There were less than a thousand people in this facility, and his limbs suddenly felt heavier at the thought of his countrymen not making it out. How many people died due to the sudden attack, with the last thing they probably saw being the monstrous appearance of the alien lifeform?
“Come with me,” his sister told him then, pulling him by the elbow. He allowed himself to be led to a spiral staircase, using one hand to cling to the railing and his ears to follow her footsteps. He felt sick, weary, and terrified all at the same time, and he wondered if his twin could feel it too.
Riisa led him to a room having two beds, and it was then she showed him the number on her wrist. 588. “I told them I have a brother and that he would come, and that once he does, they should list him after me. They listened,” she explained. Nino could only sit down on one of the beds, shutting his eyes. He could still see the many eyes of the creature from hours ago, the shining orbs that looked like ichor except they were neon blue, almost cyan. He believed one eye was about the size of one grown man, and he trembled.
“Here,” he heard Riisa say, and he opened his eyes to accept a glass of water from her hand. She was trembling too, and yet she was also taking care of him despite not having seen him for years. Nino took the glass gratefully and drank, his eyes on his sister’s. Of all the ways he thought he would meet her again, having a gigantic alien lifeform devastating Tokyo was not something he imagined. He almost laughed, except he had no strength to. It literally took the world ending for them to meet again and talk like this, after he deliberately stayed away to pursue his dreams of becoming an accomplished musician despite their mother’s refusal.
Riisa tried to stay in touch with him when their mother died, but he kept his distance. When she got married, Nino didn’t come to the wedding either. Nino could only assume that her husband didn’t make it out of Tokyo, if she opted to wait for him instead despite not seeing his face for so many years.
To look at her now and see that she was acting like nothing had happened, Nino didn’t know what to feel. He was thankful she made it out, but he hadn’t exactly prepared for the situation where he would be looking at her eyes that were full of nothing but questions for him. He hurt her and he knew it, but was there time to talk about it when the world was ending with every second that passed by?
“I’m sorry,” he said suddenly, startling himself and his sister. It was the only thing he could say that would somehow encompass everything. She looked stricken for a moment, her eyes wild and disbelieving, almost angry, and for a moment Nino thought he’d rather look at the creature’s multiple eyes from earlier than meet hers.
Then she sighed, waving a hand. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” she told him. Outside, they could hear people shuffling and climbing the stairs, as well as the voice of someone in the speakers, cracking but still audible. It mentioned that all the government knew about the attack would be relayed very soon, and that countermeasures were being put in motion. Nino wondered what they meant by that.
“You’re here now,” Riisa said, offering a hand to him in truce, something they often did when they were children and he made her cry by telling the truth about the existence of rainbows and the pot of gold at the end of it. He took her hand into his, meeting her eyes. “Whatever this is, whatever’s happening right now, we have each other.”
Somehow, Nino believed her.
--
When the world leaders had convened and approved the Jaeger program, Riisa signed up for it despite Nino’s insistence that they remain where they were. Shimane was far enough from Tokyo, and so far, the trained soldiers in the gigantic robot mechas were able to keep the monsters at bay. Kaiju, the world referred to them, intruders from the sky which knew nothing but destruction and devastation, otherworldly beings which sought nothing but mankind’s annihilation.
“I have to do this,” Riisa said, and Nino saw himself in her eyes, with the way her determination stared back at him. He felt like he was looking at his seventeen year-old self, the one that declared that he had to follow his passion and he couldn’t do it Katsushika. It sent a wave of deja vu in him, and Nino knew he couldn’t stop her anymore.
“Our people are fighting and we can’t just sit here and wait till the fight gets to us. What then? We have to make a stand. We can’t just remain here and do nothing when our own people are fighting for us,” Riisa told him as she laced her boots.
Nino knew there was no stopping her, but he had to try. “Their job is to fight. They were trained for that. You weren’t. I wasn’t. You were an accountant and I spent my days strumming guitars in clubs that would have me. Those people out there? Those people you claim that are fighting for us? Their job is to fight for us. You and I have no place in the war.”
Riisa looked at him with combined determination and disappointment, and Nino thought he’d be fine with her feeling that way as long as she listened to him and stayed where it was safe. “This is our fight,” his sister said, voice hard. “This is our war. Our place is to stand with everyone who’s taking a stand, along with the rest of the world. The program is effective; we are fighting back after months and months of cowering and staying low, hoping the kaiju won’t notice us. We were living like insects, waiting to be crushed for good until this program came and gave us hope. And you want to stop me from helping out? From signing up to train among our people, to learn how to fight? Because I was an accountant?!”
Nino shut his eyes. There was no stopping her. “I am not stopping you because you were an accountant,” he said through his teeth, “I’m stopping you because you are going to die.”
Something shifted in her expression then, and Nino’s shoulders slumped in defeat. After years of being separated, he didn’t want to lose her anymore. She was the only family he had left. Nino knew her, so he knew she would excel. She would prove herself worthy of the chance and in no time she would find herself in the fray, dropped right in the middle of chaos. For now they were winning. For now the Jaeger program was working in pushing back, in fighting back. But for how long?
“I chose this,” Riisa said quietly. She crossed the room and held his face in her hands, and Nino shook his head for one last time to tell her wordlessly not to go. She leaned forward, kissing his forehead in farewell, something he did that one stormy night when he left their home in Katsushika for good. “You understand, don’t you? This is something I have to do.”
He held her hands against his own before nodding, almost laughing at her quoting his own words back at him. He never thought the day would come. He pulled back a little to look into her eyes, and he found himself meeting her smile with his own. He reached in one of his pockets and pulled out an orange string bracelet Riisa made for him many years ago, back when she was still addicted to the things and the art of making them. He always kept it with him, treating it as a good luck charm.
He handed it to her, closing his palm over hers. “If I can’t stop you, I want you to come back and return that to me.” He looked up, meeting her eyes and her smile. “When this is all over and the world is kaiju-free. Come back and give that to me. Or make me a new one. That one’s nearly black instead of orange from all the dirt, after all.”
Riisa laughed a little, punching him lightly on the arm. She gave him a brief nod, and Nino watched her sling her bag on her shoulder. She turned to do his trademark salute before leaving, and that was the last time Nino saw his twin.
--
They came from the sky.
Nino remembers how they took Tokyo along with the surrounding prefectures, even as far as Iwate in the north and Shizuoka in the south. He also remembers how the world convened to stop them and how it worked, but only for a while.
Mostly, he remembers how they took his sister away.
He doesn’t know whom to blame. Does he blame the kaiju for coming out of nowhere, for falling like meteors from outer space and invading Earth by trampling down everything in their path? Does he blame the world leaders for accepting a robotic program which ended up saving a couple of cities all over the world? Does he blame the soldiers for not doing a good enough job that they ended up needing volunteers, more people who were willing to fight? Does he blame Riisa for her decision to stand up to her morals, for sticking to her beliefs till the end?
In the end, when Nino stares at the nearly faded 589 on his wrist, all he ends up blaming is himself. He tells himself he could have tried harder to stop her, that he could have done all he could to not let her walk out of the door of their shared room. Maybe he shouldn’t have left her from the very beginning and should have chosen her instead of a guitar that was probably crushed under a kaiju’s feet from the first wave.
At times, Nino wonders what could have been Riisa’s last thoughts. He looked up the Jaeger program after she had signed up for it and found that it worked using the consciousness of two people. Whoever was partnered with Riisa had full access to her thoughts until her last breath. Whenever Nino thinks of this partner, he wonders if that person is still alive. He never heard about it anymore because he ceased following the news once he got word on her death. In the end, it didn’t matter to him whoever got her killed. She’s dead and he’s totally alone, no family of his own and awaiting death at the hands of gigantic monsters from outer space.
He ends up volunteering in Fukuoka to build vessels to carry people out of Earth once the kaiju take over the planet. Where the people of Earth will go after is uncertain, but Nino thinks it doesn’t matter if they end up trying to establish life on another planet or end up drifting in outer space for the rest of their lives.
To him, nothing matters anymore. He doesn’t intend to join them anyway. Once the evacuation protocol begins and the spacecrafts get loaded, he intends to remain where he is and await whatever fate is bestowed upon him along with his home planet. Riisa made her choice, and this is him making his.
He’s hefting a short steel bar over his shoulders when Maruyama calls out his name. Nino only knows him because he is the only optimist in the bunch of workers, always loud and making jokes just to lighten the mood.
“Someone’s here for you,” Maru tells him, and he simply shrugs. He has no idea who it might be, not when he’s the only Ninomiya of his bloodline that he knows to be living. Most of his friends in Tokyo didn’t make it out, and even if they did, they didn’t keep in touch. Riisa was the only one he had and even she was taken away from him. It no longer matters who’s looking for him and if Nino knew the person or not.
He hears his name being called out and he turns along with Maru, who eventually excuses himself. He sees a man almost as tall as he is, wearing a graying jumpsuit along with faded boots and Nino immediately knows that he isn’t from around here. Probably belongs up north where the fight is going on.
When Nino looks up, he notices that the stranger possesses patient eyes. “Are you him?” the stranger asks him, and Nino waits. “Ninomiya Kazunari?”
Nino snorts, pulling up his sleeve to show the number on his wrist. “I’m 589,” he states, a little defiant. He started going by 589 whenever someone asked him if he was indeed the brother of one of the pilots. Riisa gained a popularity for herself after the siege of Nagano, and everyone around him at that time congratulated him on her behalf.
He continues referring to himself as 589 even after her death; he felt that a part of him died with her anyway. “What do you want?” he asks, keeping the bar balanced on his shoulder and walking once more.
“You look just like her,” the stranger murmurs, and Nino drops the aluminum bar with a deafening clang and whips his head angrily.
He approaches the stranger in tiny steps, pointing to the man's face with an accusatory finger. “What do you want? What, getting her killed isn’t enough for you guys? Have you come to kill me too, the twin? Is that how it goes? Did you come all the way from the fancy training center up there in Osaka, all the way down here to finally seal the deal?” He’s breathing hard and seeing red, and he thinks it won’t take much effort on his part to rip this man to shreds or strangle him to death. This stranger is rubbing salt to the wound, reminding him of what he lost.
Nino feels like this stranger is the face of god mocking him, telling him that every day he spends in front of the mirror tearing up at the sight of his own face isn’t enough repentance and regret, that he hasn’t smashed enough mirrors in his anger and suffering.
“You think I’d come all the way here from our ‘fancy training center’ to come and kill you when the kaiju will eventually do that for me?” the stranger asks, his eyes still the same patient ones from earlier. Nino seethes, hating every bit of understanding he can see in those. This man doesn’t understand anything about what he’s feeling, how he’s feeling.
He doesn’t need this man’s sympathy.
Nino grabs the stranger’s shoulders and shoves him back. “Then what do you want? Did it take you that much time to find the only family she had left? Have you come to offer your sympathies to the remaining family? You’re a few years too late, I’m afraid; I would have expected the flowers some three years ago, not now.”
The stranger stumbles a little in his steps, but when he meets Nino’s eyes, there’s no hint of anger in them still. Nino wishes he could see even a sliver of it so he can justify acting in accordance what his hands are itching for him to do.
The man shakes his head. “I didn’t come here to tell you I’m sorry for your loss, although I am. I came here to ask the impossible from you.” The stranger looks at him in all seriousness then. “I’m here to ask you to come to Osaka.”
Somehow, a bubble of laughter manages to escape from Nino’s throat. “What, so you can get me killed too? So I was right; killing one of the twins isn’t enough for you guys. You want me to go up there, do what she did, only to die like she did? That’s what you want, isn’t it? Another body count to your program, another Ninomiya?”
The stranger sighs. “I won’t deny that I want you to come up to Osaka to undergo training. That’s exactly the reason I’m here. But as for dying, that’s up to you. We’re all going to die anyway, Ninomiya-san. You know it yourself. These vessels? These spaceships you’re helping to build, they have nowhere to go. And should you plan to stay behind, there’s nothing on Earth but death. Even now, there’s nothing but death. If you come to Osaka, your chances of dying increase tenfold. But it’s not up to me how you die.” The man fixes him with a look, and Nino sees conviction in the stranger’s eyes. “That’s up to you. So I’m only going to ask once: how long do you intend to hide?”
Nino acts on instinct, grabbing the man’s collar forcefully and snarling at his face. “You know nothing about me.”
The stranger meets his eyes calmly. “You’re right, I don’t. But I knew your sister. And I like to believe that a part of her lives inside you, the part that believes in something and has made the decision to take a stand.”
Nino shoves the stranger away. “You’ve got the wrong guy,” he murmurs, shutting his eyes. “I’m not my sister. We may look alike, but I’m not her. I can’t do what she did. She won back how many prefectures for you? Six? I can’t do that. Look at me.” He spreads his palms for effect, laughing bitterly as the stranger takes in his form. “I’m just a guy lifting steel bars and putting them in place. You’re right, we’re all going to die. And my sister chose to die in a Jaeger.”
“And you?” the man asks him. “How do you choose to die? Atoning for your sister by lifting steel bars and preparing for other people’s departure from Earth? Or remembering her and using that memory as a resolve to do something right?”
Nino laughs bitterly. “How do you even know if I’m doing something right? I thought I was doing something right when I allowed her to go, when I didn’t try harder to stop her. And where did that lead me? Where did that lead her? Don’t tell me what’s right or wrong when you don’t even know me.”
“Then your sister was wrong to believe in you,” the stranger declares calmly, and Nino wants to wrap his fingers around the man’s throat for being so presumptive, but he only clenches his fists in anger. The man continues despite seeing his obvious distress. “Before the fall of Yamanashi, she told me that if she didn’t make it, I would have to find you. She said you would know what to do, that you would know why she said that. She told me you’d understand.”
Nino closes his eyes, unable to look at the man’s face anymore. Yamanashi was where Riisa died, having been overpowered by a category IV kaiju. Nino didn’t delve into much details at the time; the shock of losing her hit him too hard. “Are you saying this is her dying wish? For me to follow you to Osaka?” he says, voice shaky. He long wondered what Riisa’s last thoughts were, if she ever regretted doing what she did and not staying behind. To finally know the truth from a man he only met today is a bit too much to take in.
The man shakes his head. “I don’t know if it was a wish on her part or an order. I just knew I had to do it out of respect for what she did for you, for me, and for all of us.”
Nino’s eyes snap open then, meeting the stare of the stranger. “The one who was in the Jaeger with her at that time,” Nino says carefully, “is that person still alive?”
The stranger blinks, as if processing why Nino doesn’t know, but he recovers immediately. “Yes. He’s in Osaka.”
Nino narrows his eyes, his hands still clenched into fists, his nails digging into his own palms. “Take me to him, then,” he says, and when the stranger frowns, Nino begins to lead the way out of the shipyard, his footsteps echoing in their heaviness. “You asked how long I intended to hide. Take me to that man so I can answer that question for myself. He was still connected to her when she died, wasn’t he?”
The stranger matches his pace and nods, almost imperceptible given their quick strides, but Nino caught it. “That’s how drifting works.”
Once out of the shipyard and breathing air that doesn’t smell like metals being welded, Nino exhales. “Then you need to promise me that you will take me to that guy so I will have my answers. I will not go to Osaka for you, whoever you are. I’m going up there for her, and if I don’t get what I want, your program can go to hell for all I care.”
“Very well. I promise.” The stranger nods, holding out a hand for him to shake. Nino takes it cautiously, and the man smiles for the first time since their meeting. “Ohno Satoshi,” the man introduces himself, bowing a little. “I’m the Osaka Shatterdome fightmaster.”
--
The Shatterdome is filled with people, some even younger than Nino, when he arrives in the main platform with Ohno Satoshi. They’d taken another truck ride which reminded Nino of the last time he’d been in one, only that this time he was going closer to where the war is instead of running away from it.
Ohno leads him inside the dome in confident strides despite their lack of sleep and food. They’d had to travel for an entire day to reach Osaka, and it had taken them longer than expected for they had to avoid several areas that were impassable due to the debris. Some people shoot salutes in their way and Ohno simply waves them off. Nino is on his guard; he still doesn’t trust Ohno Satoshi despite the man’s calm behavior towards him. Besides, Ohno is supposedly taking him to the man who was with her sister in her dying moments. Nino thinks he needs all of his wits with him to be able to look at that man in the face and not spit on him or try to harm him in any way.
Nino is led to a set of brass doors without labels, each going as high as thirty feet tall. Beside him, Ohno keys in a number code to open them, and what greets Nino is the sight of more than a dozen volunteers sparring.
He frowns as the volunteers stand in attention at the sight of Ohno, and Ohno waves a hand to indicate that they are to resume training. “These are your training grounds,” Nino states, and he hears Ohno’s approving hum. “Why are we here? You promised I would meet the person who was with her at that time.”
Ohno enters the hall and Nino has no choice but to follow, matching the man’s slow strides. He sees Ohno’s eyes darting from one volunteer to another, how Ohno observes every movement of the volunteers. “You will meet him,” Ohno assures him as they walk the corners of the combat hall. “But only when you’re both ready.”
Nino yanks at Ohno’s arm, halting their movement. “If, from the beginning, you planned to sign me up for the program before holding up your end of the deal,” he begins, but Ohno lifts a hand to cut him off and points to his tight grip on the man’s bicep.
“I have every intention of keeping my promise, but you’re a cadet now, Ninomiya-san,” Ohno informs him, wrenching away from his grip successfully. Nino is now starting to understand how Ohno became the fightmaster. “The moment you stepped inside this hall, you’re automatically a volunteer and a cadet under me. Therefore, you’re only ready when I say you’re ready, and that includes meeting him. And right now, you are not ready.”
Nino keeps his rage in check. “You manipulative bastard,” he accuses through gritted teeth. “You’re saying I have to pass all these tests, whatever’s in your curriculum, to be able to know the truth about my sister? Who are you to deny me that?”
“I’m not denying you anything,” Ohno says calmly, his eyes on the rest of the trainees. “But as a fightmaster, my job is to make you field ready, and that includes your stability. I need you on your feet out there, not on your knees. With the way you are now, you won’t be able to handle whatever truth you want to know, whatever it is you think you’re prepared to know.”
Nino snorts, trying to resist the urge to punch Ohno in the face. “I get to decide that, not you.”
Ohno turns, meeting his angry eyes with very calm ones. “You’re right, I don’t. But in order to fully comprehend whatever answers you’re looking for, you need to understand what kind of world this is, what kind of world those answers are in.”
“Her world, you mean,” Nino clarifies with narrowed eyes, and Ohno nods. “You’re telling me I need to step into her world, to see what she saw, to feel what she felt, and to do what she did before I get to meet the guy who let her die?”
Ohno takes a deep breath, blinking for a few moments in thought. “All I’m saying is that you need to be ready,” Ohno says, his eyes on the pairs of cadets sparring. “And that I can help you get there as soon as possible.” Ohno tilts his head to the side, gesturing to another set of metal doors at the far corner of the room. “Shall we?”
The fightmaster walks without waiting for his confirmation, and Nino spends a few seconds composing himself before following. Ohno takes him past the metal doors which reveal a hangar, and Nino lays eyes on a set of Jaegers for the first time.
Riisa piloted these things? That girl three minutes younger than him who cried when Nino told her there was no pot of gold at the end of a rainbow when they were five made these things move, gave them life to keep the monsters under the bed? Nino looks at the gigantic mecha and feels overwhelmed. These things- close to the size of the kaijus Nino only saw on the TV back in the evacuation facility in Shimane- are the same things he could only believe provided they were being projected by a monitor screen.
And now he’s clinging to a metal railing to maintain his balance as he looks at not only one but five of them standing side-by-side, with Ohno Satoshi, the fightmaster, expecting him to be ready to pilot one in less than six months from now.
Ohno points to a Jaeger on their right, one that is painted dark blue and looking almost black given the lack of light, but Nino doesn’t need proper lighting to recognize it. It’s the one Riisa took with her to win Nagano back, along with other five prefectures before her death in Yamanashi.
“Storm Sentinel,” Nino whispers, and Ohno nods. Nino turns to the man, unable to look at the robot any longer. “Wasn’t she destroyed? When… when Yamanashi wasn’t taken back.”
Ohno cocks his head. “Damaged, Ninomiya-san,” Ohno corrects him patiently, “not destroyed. She was out of commission for a good while, but the engineers finally got her working again after three long years of silence. She needs a co-pilot.”
Nino frowns at that. “What, the other co-pilot is already decided so you’re only looking for one he’s compatible with? And he’s the guy who let her die, isn’t he?” He laughs- a sarcastic sound that’s less audible given the welding noises going on under their feet. “Why is he returning to pilot these things? Is he that eager to have someone die who’s not him for the second time around?”
Ohno faces him with an unreadable expression. “It’s not my place to tell you what his reasons are even if I know them, as much as it’s not your place to speak on his behalf. You don’t know him yet. I know you’re angry, I know you’re confused and you have a lot of questions only he can answer. But like I said in the combat grounds, you are not ready.” Ohno fixes him a look. “And neither is he.”
He looks at Ohno, feeling utterly confused. “Cut the bullshit,” he demands, despite Ohno being his superior. Nino can’t care any less; he’s only here for someone he lost three years ago and instead of feeling closer to the truth he always craved, he feels farther from it than ever before. “If he’s not ready and I’m not ready, then you’re not keeping your promise. You brought me here because she asked you to. I can deal with this, even when I know that this is only partially true and you’re not telling me the rest. What I can’t deal with is you patronizing me. Why do I have to prove myself to you just so that I can hear something you have no right to hide from me in the first place? You said you weren’t denying me anything and yet here you are, standing in the way as I try to find my answers. Why do I have to undergo ranger training just to find what my sister’s last thoughts were? Why do I have to be her in order to know her?”
Ohno blinks once before turning back to the Jaegers assembled in front of them. Nino is trying hard not to reach out and push Ohno off the ledge. He’s angry, frustrated, and exhausted. Angry at Ohno being ambiguous, frustrated with himself and what he has to go through, and exhausted from the pangs of guilt catching up to him every time he stops running to catch his breath.
Hasn’t it been enough?
Ohno lets out a deep breath. “No one’s asking you to be her,“ Ohno claims, his fingers tapping against the metal railing in a beat Nino recognizes as an X-Japan song after listening to it intently. “But you’re right about one thing. You need to prove that you are ready to hear the truth.”
Nino can only say one word at this point. “Why?”
Ohno smiles, a sad one that somehow makes him look twice his age. Briefly, Nino wonders what kinds of horrors Ohno has seen in his career as a fightmaster. How many cadets of his died in the war? How many aspiring rangers did he train personally, only for them to never come back?
“Because it’s what she deserves,” Ohno declares, meeting his eyes sadly. Nino looks away after a moment; a bit of Ohno’s involvement now sinking in.
“You trained her,” Nino says, and it’s not even a question. “You watched over her and declared her combat ready, and one day she just didn’t come back.” He bites his lip and shuts his eyes, hearing the beating of his heart despite the activity in the hangar surrounding them. He’s trembling, and for the first time, he believes Ohno’s statement from earlier.
He’s not ready. He can’t take this.
He feels Ohno’s hand on his elbow, a soft touch that somehow reminds him that he’s not alone. “Come,” Ohno murmurs, already pulling him. He didn’t confirm any of Nino’s assumptions, but Nino knows his hunch is right because of the change in Ohno’s voice. Ohno tugs at him once more, and Nino lets go of the railing to let Ohno guide him.
“I’ll show you where the cafeteria is.”
--
His first day ended with Ohno giving him a tour around the Shatterdome and giving him a tattered pamphlet for the Academy which included all the information about the curriculum Nino was signing up for. Ohno assigned him as the newest recruit under Delta Company and even went as far as introducing him to the company leader, Miyake from Kanagawa. Apparently, Ohno knew more than enough about Nino to be able to say that Nino came from Tokyo, although that bit might have been unnecessary given that most people he encountered in the Shatterdome so far immediately recognized his resemblance to his sister.
With twenty recruits in each of the Academy’s companies, Nino felt that being recruit number 20 made the other nineteen people he was assigned to share the room with eye him with either contempt or curiosity.
Refusing to find out which one it was, he walked up to his bunk and slept, aware that he was up for an early start the following morning according to the pamphlet Ohno handed to him.
He manages to make it to the first cut after eight weeks of combined learning and training. He learns more about robot mechanics and kaiju in here than in the hours he spent following Riisa’s victories back in the days. The more he learns, the more he realizes that he can never live up to his sister’s name.
It doesn’t help that there are recruits who look at him as if he knows what he’s doing. He often gets the “so you’re here to continue the legacy?” kind of questions and it takes a lot on his part not to punch that person in the face for asking. He wonders if that’s all his sister was to them, to everyone in this Shatterdome: a legacy. Was she ever human to them? Did they ever see that she was just a little girl trying to make a difference because not a lot of people were willing to?
Nino wonders if these people around him see him for who he truly is. He’s aware that to them he’s the twin, the brother who came three years later to finish what the sister started. The prodigal son. They expect much from him because of that, and while Nino doesn’t care if he lives up to the expectations or not, he wonders if this is what Riisa herself would have wanted for him to do.
He doesn’t know if he’s moving forward or not. He’s making progress, yes. He’s turned out to be a very promising cadet despite his reservations about the whole program, but that doesn’t help him sleep at night. At night, he hears the deafening roar of the kaiju from the first wave, and when he tries to shut his eyes tightly to remind himself that it’s all in his head, he sees his sister leaving for good instead. He finds no consolation from acting on his choices, no comfort in whatever he’s doing. He’s doing it for her, but he doesn’t even know if it’s what she wanted from him.
In his stay in the Shatterdome, he comes to know most of the people his sister interacted with. Sometimes Ohno introduces them to him, sometimes they look at him like they’ve seen a ghost and it’s then that Nino knows that they knew her. He laughs when the latter happens, when they look so struck upon looking at his face because it’s what he feels every time he looks at a mirror. He laughs because he doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t know how to describe what being haunted feels like, how it feels it be followed around by a ghost who looks exactly like you. They won’t understand.
He’s on his tenth week when Ohno introduces him to one Sakurai Sho, the Shatterdome’s psych analyst. Sakurai shakes his hand with force and conviction, and for a moment Nino feels envious about how stable Sakurai seems to be.
Then again, Sakurai’s not the one who lost a twin and is being haunted because of it.
“So your job is to tinker with people’s brains like the engineers out there tinker with the Jaegers?” Nino asks, when Ohno has excused himself and he and Sakurai are standing in line in the cafeteria. “Evaluate if they make the cut by seeing if their mind can carry somebody else’s consciousness aside from their own?”
Sakurai sighs. “I wish it was that easy.” He doesn’t elaborate anymore, but when Nino makes it to the second cut, he finds out that Sakurai’s job is to make sure rangers have their wits with them, especially after surviving a kaiju attack.
“Most people here are traumatized,” Sakurai explains. “Some are traumatized after piloting a Jaeger and seeing a kaiju up close, and yet there are those who haven’t even set foot inside a Jaeger and are no less traumatized than the ones who did. My job is to make sure these people can control the trauma and can handle its manifestations. We’re all damaged in our own way, Ninomiya-san. But that doesn’t mean we’re beaten.”
Nino eventually puts Sakurai in the same category as he put Ohno in: idealists. Ohno has his idealistic views on how the world can be, provided they push back with enough force to delay doomsday for one more day. Sakurai, meanwhile, has his idealistic views on how people can be provided they’re given the right push.
More often than not, Nino feels like he’s an ongoing experiment for these people, here for their combined entertainment and curiosity. Will he turn out to be like Riisa? Will he make it past through the third and final cut? Will he stand inside a Jaeger and help the resistance? What if he doesn’t get to do any of that? Are there bets under his name, something like ‘those betting on Ninomiya Kazunari making it, please place your bets on the left’?
Sometimes he thinks on Sakurai’s claim that they’re all damaged. Nino won’t deny it. He’s here in an attempt to silence his ghosts but he feels them louder and more noticeable than ever before, like they’re gaining on him and he’s running out of places to go and hide. He’s here to find answers but instead of feeling closer to them, he feels as if all ways leading to them are currently barred shut. He often wonders what it’ll be like once he meets the person Riisa was drift compatible with. Ohno has been particularly skilled at dodging his questions and evading him entirely.
If he meets that person, that one who holds all the answers he’s sought ever since her death, he wonders if the hatred that he let fester inside him will finally expose itself. He wonders if he can handle standing in that person’s presence and not blame him for everything, all because he can’t find it in him to blame himself. Vengeance is like an open wound, and Nino’s has been ignored for too long.
Damaged, Sakurai said.
Nino laughs, thinking that Sakurai’s still an idealist for his desire to help every single damaged person in this Shatterdome, but at least he’s realistic enough to acknowledge that they’re all fucked up in their own little ways.
--
Nino continues training. He completes the fourteen-hour long daily training in the combat halls, mastering his moves and letting himself be pushed to his physical and mental limits. He has Ohno’s ever-watchful eye on him as he strikes down one cadet from another, claiming one victory after the other.
People tell him he shows a lot of promise. Nino can’t wait to show them what’s inside his head, the final step that will determine if he can do what Riisa did or not, if he deserves to learn about her final moments in the field or not.
He’s pinning down a fellow cadet from the Beta Company when Ohno declares, “That’ll be enough, Nino.” Ohno has grown familiar with him, but instead of using his given name, Ohno took the liberty of going with the way most people referred to him. Maybe Riisa told him about the nickname during her stay. Nino doesn’t ask anymore. Just to know that she walked the same halls as he’s doing now, that she did the same things, has him wanting to throw a sheet over himself and stay there until the ghosts have calmed down.
Nino lets go, offering a hand to his sparring partner to help him get back on his feet, and when Nino looks up, Ohno’s eyes are different. Nino’s aware that they haven’t found anyone compatible with him yet and time is running out. He’s nearing the end of the training and he can’t step inside a simulator without anyone deemed to be drift compatible with him.
It’s then he notices someone else standing beside Ohno, someone taller with broader shoulders still evident in his dark jumpsuit. When the stranger looks up and their eyes meet, Nino is filled with so many things at once: shock, followed by recognition, and finally, anger.
He trembles, but it’s unlike the trembling he felt coursing through him during the first wave when Riisa had to hand him a glass of water with shaking hands. He’s quaking for a different reason this time, and it’s the fact that he’s finally staring at the face of the person who stood beside Riisa in all those victories. Nino has forgotten his name, deemed it unimportant after his sister’s death, but he wouldn’t forget the face. The large, almost blaring features, the signs of weariness evident in every shift of his expression.
It’s him.
Any confirmation Nino would ever need is on the man’s face. He looks cornered, like someone forgot to lock the door and all the monsters came rushing in at the same time. He looks at Nino like he has seen a ghost, and Nino wants to laugh because that’s exactly what it is. He’s the spitting image of the one that died in this man’s hands, and it takes all of Nino’s control not to grab a fencing sword nearby and challenge the man to a spar that’ll be far from friendly.
“Nino.” Ohno’s voice coaxes him, and he’s breathing hard as he turns to the fightmaster.
“After weeks of evading me, this is how you intend to keep your promise?” Nino asks through clenched teeth and equally clenched fists. His eyes are still on the stranger with Ohno, and it takes all of Nino’s effort not to cross the room and demands the answers for himself. “Ninomiya Kazunari,” he says slowly, introducing himself. Everyone in the sparring hall has their eyes on them now, but Nino doesn’t care. “Though I suppose you already know that, having been inside her brain so many times. We meet at last.”
He’s seeing red and he’s trapped in a haze that he knows that if this man with Ohno says the wrong thing, Nino can no longer account for what he might do.
“Matsumoto,” is all the man says, and Nino turns to Ohno.
“May I spar with him, fightmaster?” he asks respectfully, and he sees the recognition in Ohno’s eyes. Nino has never addressed Ohno using his position in the Academy until now, and he knows Ohno can see the unmistakable intent in his eyes.
“I didn’t bring him here to fight you,” Ohno says quickly, and Nino laughs, a rather hollow sound that silences everyone murmuring around them. Nino walks to a nearby shelf and grabs two bo staffs, tossing the other to Matsumoto who catches it reflexively.
Ohno looks disapproving, but Nino won’t let someone like him stop him now. “I’m not interested in your intentions, Ohno-san. I’m interested in his,” he says, pointing to Matsumoto using the staff in his right hand as he walks back to the center of the hall.
Nino sneers, finally remembering the name. “Because you didn’t come here to just meet the ghost in the flesh, did you, Jun-kun?”
The other cadets make a clearing, and Nino waits in the center. Ohno shakes his head in disappointment at him, but damn him. Nino played the good pupil for too long. He has excelled in his studies for it to come to this.
“You are not ready,” Ohno says firmly, although whether he says that to Nino or to Matsumoto or to the both of them, Nino isn’t sure.
But Nino looks at Ohno, eyes defiant. “I get to decide that now. I spent weeks hearing you say that. But now that he’s here,” he pauses, pointing at Matsumoto once more, “I get to decide that for myself. And I’ve been preparing myself for this.”
He sees Ohno and Matsumoto talk it over and Nino waits impatiently, maneuvering his staff under his arm and assuming the stance. He catches Ohno’s almost imperceptible nod of agreement after a moment, and Matsumoto turns to him with resignation in his features as he unbuttons the top of his jumpsuit to tie the sleeves around his narrow waist, revealing a shirt underneath.
Matsumoto crosses to the center of the room and stops in front of him, and Nino wonders what it’s like for him. Is it like preparing himself to fight Riisa once more? Does he remember the first time he and Riisa sparred in this hall as he faces Nino now?
“I thought I taught you never to attack in anger,” Ohno says from the corner of the room, and Nino smirks as he squares his shoulders, seeing Matsumoto assume his ready stance.
“You taught me a great many things, fightmaster,” Nino acknowledges, never looking away from Matsumoto’s eyes. The same eyes that saw his sister die three-something years ago. How does Nino look to him right now?
“This isn’t me being angry,” Nino admits as he and Matsumoto circle each other. “This is me trying to find the one thing you promised me.”
Nino makes the first strike, lunging and aiming for Matsumoto’s side, only for his attack to be deflected by a perfectly placed staff. He’s good, Nino will give him that, but Nino worked hard to get to this point. He pivots, twisting his trunk to evade a strike aimed at his chin, and crouches down to sweep his staff under Matsumoto’s feet to knock the man off balance, but Matsumoto jumps at the right time and rolls onto his back to put distance between them.
“It’s not a fight,” Ohno calls out as a reminder as he and Matsumoto stare each other down. “We don’t fight here, we measure compatibility. Don’t let your anger dictate your moves.”
Matsumoto makes the first move this time, changing his grip on his staff to aim for Nino’s temple, but Nino ducks down and twists his wrist to land a strike near Matsumoto’s eye. He stops at the right moment, the smoothness of his staff resting against Matsumoto’s skin but not inflicting damage, and Nino meets the man’s eyes before smirking.
“You’re not going to lose to a cadet just because he has her face, are you?” he asks, and something flashes over Matsumoto’s eyes. “I don’t want your sympathy. I didn’t come all this way for your pity.”
Matsumoto pushes his staff away using his own, shifting his grip on the wood to aim at his side, and Nino sidesteps to evade the lunge. “What was it like to let her die?” Nino asks in a voice quiet enough so only Matsumoto can hear him. “What was it like to watch her die when you could have saved her?”
Nino blocks a blow aimed at his head, seeing fear and guilt in Matsumoto’s expressive eyes. “You were still connected to her when it happened,” Nino says carefully, and he watches how it affects Matsumoto, how he blinks the memories away and how his grip on the staff tightens. Nino flicks his staff upward, aiming for Matsumoto’s chin, but the move is blocked by a precisely positioned staff, its tip resting right at his throat.
“Jun,” he hears Ohno call out softly, like a reminder, and Nino uses that distraction to knock Matsumoto on his back, but before he can deliver a blow aimed at the other man’s temple, Matsumoto manages to roll over and sweep under his feet, making him lose his balance and land on his back instead. Nino gets the tip of the man’s staff pointed to his face, and sneers.
“If anyone’s keeping tabs,” he calls out for everyone to hear before maneuvering his feet to entangle his legs with Matsumoto’s to knock the man down, and Nino gets on his knee to rest his staff against the man’s cheek, “we’re now at two-two.”
He hears some of the recruits in the hall cheer his name, an odd chorus of Nino along with shouts of “best of three!” Nino thinks it won’t take much on his part to strike Matsumoto down. But Matsumoto pushes his staff away to do a forward roll to get on his feet, his knuckles white from the grip he has on his staff.
He has never answered to any of Nino’s taunts and questions, to any of Nino’s reminders of what happened, and Nino wonders how he keeps it together. Nino can see fear in his expression, hesitation in his moves, and restraint determining all of his actions, as if he’s terrified of what he could do to Nino and afraid of Nino at the same time.
Sakurai’s voice resonates in Nino’s head. Matsumoto’s clearly damaged, probably not too different from Storm Sentinel herself after the failed siege of Yamanashi, but unlike the Jaeger that was restored to optimum performance after three years, Matsumoto was never the same. What kind of horrors did he see, Nino wonders? What was it like for him to be there but unable to do anything?
Nino suddenly feels conflicted. He’s angry at this man, but he’s also angry at himself. He feels guilty for what he said earlier, all those insensitive things he said out of rage. The vengeful feelings remain, but they seem to have been quietened, even subsided. He thinks his guilt is not too different from Matsumoto’s in origin, just different in manifestation. Matsumoto won’t look him in the eye for too long, like he’s unable to look at Nino’s face because of what it reminds him of. Nino’s guilt manifests in the way he dials down his strikes, the way he shuts his mouth as he delivers one blow after another, all of which Matsumoto easily evades and blocks.
Ohno’s claim from earlier, that he’s not ready, rings in his ears, and Nino finally acknowledges it to be true when Matsumoto does a sweep maneuver and places the tip of his bo staff right between Nino’s eyes, leaving Nino effectively trapped.
“Two-three,” Ohno calls out before declaring it’s enough, and Matsumoto moves away from him quickly. He offers a shaky hand to help Nino up but Nino pushes it away, getting on his feet all by himself.
He meets Ohno’s eyes. “You’re not yet ready, cadet,” Ohno says in a voice that leaves no room for argument, and Nino straightens his back and squares his shoulders, looking at the spot behind Ohno as he asks for his dismissal. Ohno grants it with a nod, and Nino refuses to meet anyone’s eyes as he deposits the staff back in the rack, but he can feel Matsumoto’s piercing gaze on him as he walks away and departs the combat hall.
Part 2
From: 64907
Title: Ghosts of a Future Lost
Pairing/Focus: Matsumoto Jun/Ninomiya Kazunari, Nino & Arashi
Rating: R
Warnings: Minor character death, alien invasion
Summary: There are different kinds of monsters.
Notes: Dear natsunonamae, you listed a Pacific Rim AU in your sign-up, but this is only partially inspired by that and probably not what you had in mind. I hope this is still enjoyable for you. Title is from one track in Requiem for a Dream’s OST. All my love to B whose suggestions made this a lot better, and to the mod for being fantastic!
There are different kinds of monsters.
There are those you grow up thinking they're lurking under your bed, only coming out when you're properly asleep. There are those which come out of nowhere, those you see in other people in the absence of humanity, and there are some who live inside you. These, Nino understands.
Then they came from the sky.
Nino doesn't remember how. All he remembers was being shuffled to the nearest evacuation center and taking the longest ride at the back of a truck, one that took him away as far from the capital as possible. He didn't ask many questions at that time because nobody had any answers.
He was out of Tokyo when first wave broke out, and in a matter of hours, Tokyo was declared lost. When the truck driver turned on the radio for any piece of news, all they got was how Tokyo now lay in a state of debris and ruin, and whatever destroyed the capital was still rampaging there, the national air force not standing a chance.
"They came from the sky," the stuttering voice of the radio announcer said. They lost her voice in deafening static when they got too far, and it was then Nino realized that Tokyo Tower was now a remnant of the past. It probably sat as a pile of rubble, now indistinguishable as a former icon of Japan.
They didn't get very far when they began hearing the monstrous roars followed by the crushing thumps that rattled the very ground, and when Nino bravely lifted the flap covering the truck to see, he thought that Tanaka Tomoyuki's famous creation had come to life, except this one had luminescent skin and equally luminescent eyes. It had plenty; Nino couldn't remember how many eyes he saw on the thing, but each looked like it had the blood of the gods inside them, like nothing could stop it and nothing could win against it.
It looked like the embodiment of the wrath of god reaping the realm of mankind in god's stead, and Nino had to turn away and pull the flap down when a child's mother begged him to not look outside anymore. They didn't ask what he saw despite the howling continuously sounding like booming thunder and as constant as the flashes of lightning in a fierce storm, and even if they did ask what it was, Nino knew he wouldn't have the heart nor the ability to tell them.
It was something out of this world, something he had only seen in the numerous games he played and mangas he read, something that shouldn't be possible at all. It was the beginning of the end, and as the truck sped away, carrying the hopes of almost thirty people that they would remain unnoticed till they reached their yet unknown destination, Nino knew this was the beginning of mankind’s last stand.
--
Monsters, they called them. When Nino arrived in the evacuation facility, somewhere in an abandoned tower in Shimane, that was what they were called. He had to walk past a couple of people claiming they saw the monster with their very own eyes and that Tokyo wasn’t the only city which experienced an attack. He had to listen to continuous whispers that the entire globe was experiencing similar panic, that this was something the leaders of the world never prepared themselves for.
When he had to register his name, he found her then. He was wondering if she got away from Tokyo safely, but there had been no time to check and no way to know. The phone lines didn’t work, the power system in Tokyo was no longer functional, and he had to cling to nothing but hope that she made it out once the emergency evacuation procedures began.
“What were those things?” Riisa asked him then, and Nino couldn’t tell his sister anything. He was older than her by three minutes and she looked up to him for answers ever since, even when he started telling her white lies just for the fun of seeing her devastated face once she found out the truth.
Nino could see his face looking back at him in combined wonder and fear, only that her features were softer than his and that made her alarm and worry more evident than his own. Still, it felt as if he was looking at the mirror that showed what he was trying his best to hide, and he had to look away as he signed his name and offered his wrist for a number tag.
589. There were less than a thousand people in this facility, and his limbs suddenly felt heavier at the thought of his countrymen not making it out. How many people died due to the sudden attack, with the last thing they probably saw being the monstrous appearance of the alien lifeform?
“Come with me,” his sister told him then, pulling him by the elbow. He allowed himself to be led to a spiral staircase, using one hand to cling to the railing and his ears to follow her footsteps. He felt sick, weary, and terrified all at the same time, and he wondered if his twin could feel it too.
Riisa led him to a room having two beds, and it was then she showed him the number on her wrist. 588. “I told them I have a brother and that he would come, and that once he does, they should list him after me. They listened,” she explained. Nino could only sit down on one of the beds, shutting his eyes. He could still see the many eyes of the creature from hours ago, the shining orbs that looked like ichor except they were neon blue, almost cyan. He believed one eye was about the size of one grown man, and he trembled.
“Here,” he heard Riisa say, and he opened his eyes to accept a glass of water from her hand. She was trembling too, and yet she was also taking care of him despite not having seen him for years. Nino took the glass gratefully and drank, his eyes on his sister’s. Of all the ways he thought he would meet her again, having a gigantic alien lifeform devastating Tokyo was not something he imagined. He almost laughed, except he had no strength to. It literally took the world ending for them to meet again and talk like this, after he deliberately stayed away to pursue his dreams of becoming an accomplished musician despite their mother’s refusal.
Riisa tried to stay in touch with him when their mother died, but he kept his distance. When she got married, Nino didn’t come to the wedding either. Nino could only assume that her husband didn’t make it out of Tokyo, if she opted to wait for him instead despite not seeing his face for so many years.
To look at her now and see that she was acting like nothing had happened, Nino didn’t know what to feel. He was thankful she made it out, but he hadn’t exactly prepared for the situation where he would be looking at her eyes that were full of nothing but questions for him. He hurt her and he knew it, but was there time to talk about it when the world was ending with every second that passed by?
“I’m sorry,” he said suddenly, startling himself and his sister. It was the only thing he could say that would somehow encompass everything. She looked stricken for a moment, her eyes wild and disbelieving, almost angry, and for a moment Nino thought he’d rather look at the creature’s multiple eyes from earlier than meet hers.
Then she sighed, waving a hand. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” she told him. Outside, they could hear people shuffling and climbing the stairs, as well as the voice of someone in the speakers, cracking but still audible. It mentioned that all the government knew about the attack would be relayed very soon, and that countermeasures were being put in motion. Nino wondered what they meant by that.
“You’re here now,” Riisa said, offering a hand to him in truce, something they often did when they were children and he made her cry by telling the truth about the existence of rainbows and the pot of gold at the end of it. He took her hand into his, meeting her eyes. “Whatever this is, whatever’s happening right now, we have each other.”
Somehow, Nino believed her.
--
When the world leaders had convened and approved the Jaeger program, Riisa signed up for it despite Nino’s insistence that they remain where they were. Shimane was far enough from Tokyo, and so far, the trained soldiers in the gigantic robot mechas were able to keep the monsters at bay. Kaiju, the world referred to them, intruders from the sky which knew nothing but destruction and devastation, otherworldly beings which sought nothing but mankind’s annihilation.
“I have to do this,” Riisa said, and Nino saw himself in her eyes, with the way her determination stared back at him. He felt like he was looking at his seventeen year-old self, the one that declared that he had to follow his passion and he couldn’t do it Katsushika. It sent a wave of deja vu in him, and Nino knew he couldn’t stop her anymore.
“Our people are fighting and we can’t just sit here and wait till the fight gets to us. What then? We have to make a stand. We can’t just remain here and do nothing when our own people are fighting for us,” Riisa told him as she laced her boots.
Nino knew there was no stopping her, but he had to try. “Their job is to fight. They were trained for that. You weren’t. I wasn’t. You were an accountant and I spent my days strumming guitars in clubs that would have me. Those people out there? Those people you claim that are fighting for us? Their job is to fight for us. You and I have no place in the war.”
Riisa looked at him with combined determination and disappointment, and Nino thought he’d be fine with her feeling that way as long as she listened to him and stayed where it was safe. “This is our fight,” his sister said, voice hard. “This is our war. Our place is to stand with everyone who’s taking a stand, along with the rest of the world. The program is effective; we are fighting back after months and months of cowering and staying low, hoping the kaiju won’t notice us. We were living like insects, waiting to be crushed for good until this program came and gave us hope. And you want to stop me from helping out? From signing up to train among our people, to learn how to fight? Because I was an accountant?!”
Nino shut his eyes. There was no stopping her. “I am not stopping you because you were an accountant,” he said through his teeth, “I’m stopping you because you are going to die.”
Something shifted in her expression then, and Nino’s shoulders slumped in defeat. After years of being separated, he didn’t want to lose her anymore. She was the only family he had left. Nino knew her, so he knew she would excel. She would prove herself worthy of the chance and in no time she would find herself in the fray, dropped right in the middle of chaos. For now they were winning. For now the Jaeger program was working in pushing back, in fighting back. But for how long?
“I chose this,” Riisa said quietly. She crossed the room and held his face in her hands, and Nino shook his head for one last time to tell her wordlessly not to go. She leaned forward, kissing his forehead in farewell, something he did that one stormy night when he left their home in Katsushika for good. “You understand, don’t you? This is something I have to do.”
He held her hands against his own before nodding, almost laughing at her quoting his own words back at him. He never thought the day would come. He pulled back a little to look into her eyes, and he found himself meeting her smile with his own. He reached in one of his pockets and pulled out an orange string bracelet Riisa made for him many years ago, back when she was still addicted to the things and the art of making them. He always kept it with him, treating it as a good luck charm.
He handed it to her, closing his palm over hers. “If I can’t stop you, I want you to come back and return that to me.” He looked up, meeting her eyes and her smile. “When this is all over and the world is kaiju-free. Come back and give that to me. Or make me a new one. That one’s nearly black instead of orange from all the dirt, after all.”
Riisa laughed a little, punching him lightly on the arm. She gave him a brief nod, and Nino watched her sling her bag on her shoulder. She turned to do his trademark salute before leaving, and that was the last time Nino saw his twin.
--
They came from the sky.
Nino remembers how they took Tokyo along with the surrounding prefectures, even as far as Iwate in the north and Shizuoka in the south. He also remembers how the world convened to stop them and how it worked, but only for a while.
Mostly, he remembers how they took his sister away.
He doesn’t know whom to blame. Does he blame the kaiju for coming out of nowhere, for falling like meteors from outer space and invading Earth by trampling down everything in their path? Does he blame the world leaders for accepting a robotic program which ended up saving a couple of cities all over the world? Does he blame the soldiers for not doing a good enough job that they ended up needing volunteers, more people who were willing to fight? Does he blame Riisa for her decision to stand up to her morals, for sticking to her beliefs till the end?
In the end, when Nino stares at the nearly faded 589 on his wrist, all he ends up blaming is himself. He tells himself he could have tried harder to stop her, that he could have done all he could to not let her walk out of the door of their shared room. Maybe he shouldn’t have left her from the very beginning and should have chosen her instead of a guitar that was probably crushed under a kaiju’s feet from the first wave.
At times, Nino wonders what could have been Riisa’s last thoughts. He looked up the Jaeger program after she had signed up for it and found that it worked using the consciousness of two people. Whoever was partnered with Riisa had full access to her thoughts until her last breath. Whenever Nino thinks of this partner, he wonders if that person is still alive. He never heard about it anymore because he ceased following the news once he got word on her death. In the end, it didn’t matter to him whoever got her killed. She’s dead and he’s totally alone, no family of his own and awaiting death at the hands of gigantic monsters from outer space.
He ends up volunteering in Fukuoka to build vessels to carry people out of Earth once the kaiju take over the planet. Where the people of Earth will go after is uncertain, but Nino thinks it doesn’t matter if they end up trying to establish life on another planet or end up drifting in outer space for the rest of their lives.
To him, nothing matters anymore. He doesn’t intend to join them anyway. Once the evacuation protocol begins and the spacecrafts get loaded, he intends to remain where he is and await whatever fate is bestowed upon him along with his home planet. Riisa made her choice, and this is him making his.
He’s hefting a short steel bar over his shoulders when Maruyama calls out his name. Nino only knows him because he is the only optimist in the bunch of workers, always loud and making jokes just to lighten the mood.
“Someone’s here for you,” Maru tells him, and he simply shrugs. He has no idea who it might be, not when he’s the only Ninomiya of his bloodline that he knows to be living. Most of his friends in Tokyo didn’t make it out, and even if they did, they didn’t keep in touch. Riisa was the only one he had and even she was taken away from him. It no longer matters who’s looking for him and if Nino knew the person or not.
He hears his name being called out and he turns along with Maru, who eventually excuses himself. He sees a man almost as tall as he is, wearing a graying jumpsuit along with faded boots and Nino immediately knows that he isn’t from around here. Probably belongs up north where the fight is going on.
When Nino looks up, he notices that the stranger possesses patient eyes. “Are you him?” the stranger asks him, and Nino waits. “Ninomiya Kazunari?”
Nino snorts, pulling up his sleeve to show the number on his wrist. “I’m 589,” he states, a little defiant. He started going by 589 whenever someone asked him if he was indeed the brother of one of the pilots. Riisa gained a popularity for herself after the siege of Nagano, and everyone around him at that time congratulated him on her behalf.
He continues referring to himself as 589 even after her death; he felt that a part of him died with her anyway. “What do you want?” he asks, keeping the bar balanced on his shoulder and walking once more.
“You look just like her,” the stranger murmurs, and Nino drops the aluminum bar with a deafening clang and whips his head angrily.
He approaches the stranger in tiny steps, pointing to the man's face with an accusatory finger. “What do you want? What, getting her killed isn’t enough for you guys? Have you come to kill me too, the twin? Is that how it goes? Did you come all the way from the fancy training center up there in Osaka, all the way down here to finally seal the deal?” He’s breathing hard and seeing red, and he thinks it won’t take much effort on his part to rip this man to shreds or strangle him to death. This stranger is rubbing salt to the wound, reminding him of what he lost.
Nino feels like this stranger is the face of god mocking him, telling him that every day he spends in front of the mirror tearing up at the sight of his own face isn’t enough repentance and regret, that he hasn’t smashed enough mirrors in his anger and suffering.
“You think I’d come all the way here from our ‘fancy training center’ to come and kill you when the kaiju will eventually do that for me?” the stranger asks, his eyes still the same patient ones from earlier. Nino seethes, hating every bit of understanding he can see in those. This man doesn’t understand anything about what he’s feeling, how he’s feeling.
He doesn’t need this man’s sympathy.
Nino grabs the stranger’s shoulders and shoves him back. “Then what do you want? Did it take you that much time to find the only family she had left? Have you come to offer your sympathies to the remaining family? You’re a few years too late, I’m afraid; I would have expected the flowers some three years ago, not now.”
The stranger stumbles a little in his steps, but when he meets Nino’s eyes, there’s no hint of anger in them still. Nino wishes he could see even a sliver of it so he can justify acting in accordance what his hands are itching for him to do.
The man shakes his head. “I didn’t come here to tell you I’m sorry for your loss, although I am. I came here to ask the impossible from you.” The stranger looks at him in all seriousness then. “I’m here to ask you to come to Osaka.”
Somehow, a bubble of laughter manages to escape from Nino’s throat. “What, so you can get me killed too? So I was right; killing one of the twins isn’t enough for you guys. You want me to go up there, do what she did, only to die like she did? That’s what you want, isn’t it? Another body count to your program, another Ninomiya?”
The stranger sighs. “I won’t deny that I want you to come up to Osaka to undergo training. That’s exactly the reason I’m here. But as for dying, that’s up to you. We’re all going to die anyway, Ninomiya-san. You know it yourself. These vessels? These spaceships you’re helping to build, they have nowhere to go. And should you plan to stay behind, there’s nothing on Earth but death. Even now, there’s nothing but death. If you come to Osaka, your chances of dying increase tenfold. But it’s not up to me how you die.” The man fixes him with a look, and Nino sees conviction in the stranger’s eyes. “That’s up to you. So I’m only going to ask once: how long do you intend to hide?”
Nino acts on instinct, grabbing the man’s collar forcefully and snarling at his face. “You know nothing about me.”
The stranger meets his eyes calmly. “You’re right, I don’t. But I knew your sister. And I like to believe that a part of her lives inside you, the part that believes in something and has made the decision to take a stand.”
Nino shoves the stranger away. “You’ve got the wrong guy,” he murmurs, shutting his eyes. “I’m not my sister. We may look alike, but I’m not her. I can’t do what she did. She won back how many prefectures for you? Six? I can’t do that. Look at me.” He spreads his palms for effect, laughing bitterly as the stranger takes in his form. “I’m just a guy lifting steel bars and putting them in place. You’re right, we’re all going to die. And my sister chose to die in a Jaeger.”
“And you?” the man asks him. “How do you choose to die? Atoning for your sister by lifting steel bars and preparing for other people’s departure from Earth? Or remembering her and using that memory as a resolve to do something right?”
Nino laughs bitterly. “How do you even know if I’m doing something right? I thought I was doing something right when I allowed her to go, when I didn’t try harder to stop her. And where did that lead me? Where did that lead her? Don’t tell me what’s right or wrong when you don’t even know me.”
“Then your sister was wrong to believe in you,” the stranger declares calmly, and Nino wants to wrap his fingers around the man’s throat for being so presumptive, but he only clenches his fists in anger. The man continues despite seeing his obvious distress. “Before the fall of Yamanashi, she told me that if she didn’t make it, I would have to find you. She said you would know what to do, that you would know why she said that. She told me you’d understand.”
Nino closes his eyes, unable to look at the man’s face anymore. Yamanashi was where Riisa died, having been overpowered by a category IV kaiju. Nino didn’t delve into much details at the time; the shock of losing her hit him too hard. “Are you saying this is her dying wish? For me to follow you to Osaka?” he says, voice shaky. He long wondered what Riisa’s last thoughts were, if she ever regretted doing what she did and not staying behind. To finally know the truth from a man he only met today is a bit too much to take in.
The man shakes his head. “I don’t know if it was a wish on her part or an order. I just knew I had to do it out of respect for what she did for you, for me, and for all of us.”
Nino’s eyes snap open then, meeting the stare of the stranger. “The one who was in the Jaeger with her at that time,” Nino says carefully, “is that person still alive?”
The stranger blinks, as if processing why Nino doesn’t know, but he recovers immediately. “Yes. He’s in Osaka.”
Nino narrows his eyes, his hands still clenched into fists, his nails digging into his own palms. “Take me to him, then,” he says, and when the stranger frowns, Nino begins to lead the way out of the shipyard, his footsteps echoing in their heaviness. “You asked how long I intended to hide. Take me to that man so I can answer that question for myself. He was still connected to her when she died, wasn’t he?”
The stranger matches his pace and nods, almost imperceptible given their quick strides, but Nino caught it. “That’s how drifting works.”
Once out of the shipyard and breathing air that doesn’t smell like metals being welded, Nino exhales. “Then you need to promise me that you will take me to that guy so I will have my answers. I will not go to Osaka for you, whoever you are. I’m going up there for her, and if I don’t get what I want, your program can go to hell for all I care.”
“Very well. I promise.” The stranger nods, holding out a hand for him to shake. Nino takes it cautiously, and the man smiles for the first time since their meeting. “Ohno Satoshi,” the man introduces himself, bowing a little. “I’m the Osaka Shatterdome fightmaster.”
--
The Shatterdome is filled with people, some even younger than Nino, when he arrives in the main platform with Ohno Satoshi. They’d taken another truck ride which reminded Nino of the last time he’d been in one, only that this time he was going closer to where the war is instead of running away from it.
Ohno leads him inside the dome in confident strides despite their lack of sleep and food. They’d had to travel for an entire day to reach Osaka, and it had taken them longer than expected for they had to avoid several areas that were impassable due to the debris. Some people shoot salutes in their way and Ohno simply waves them off. Nino is on his guard; he still doesn’t trust Ohno Satoshi despite the man’s calm behavior towards him. Besides, Ohno is supposedly taking him to the man who was with her sister in her dying moments. Nino thinks he needs all of his wits with him to be able to look at that man in the face and not spit on him or try to harm him in any way.
Nino is led to a set of brass doors without labels, each going as high as thirty feet tall. Beside him, Ohno keys in a number code to open them, and what greets Nino is the sight of more than a dozen volunteers sparring.
He frowns as the volunteers stand in attention at the sight of Ohno, and Ohno waves a hand to indicate that they are to resume training. “These are your training grounds,” Nino states, and he hears Ohno’s approving hum. “Why are we here? You promised I would meet the person who was with her at that time.”
Ohno enters the hall and Nino has no choice but to follow, matching the man’s slow strides. He sees Ohno’s eyes darting from one volunteer to another, how Ohno observes every movement of the volunteers. “You will meet him,” Ohno assures him as they walk the corners of the combat hall. “But only when you’re both ready.”
Nino yanks at Ohno’s arm, halting their movement. “If, from the beginning, you planned to sign me up for the program before holding up your end of the deal,” he begins, but Ohno lifts a hand to cut him off and points to his tight grip on the man’s bicep.
“I have every intention of keeping my promise, but you’re a cadet now, Ninomiya-san,” Ohno informs him, wrenching away from his grip successfully. Nino is now starting to understand how Ohno became the fightmaster. “The moment you stepped inside this hall, you’re automatically a volunteer and a cadet under me. Therefore, you’re only ready when I say you’re ready, and that includes meeting him. And right now, you are not ready.”
Nino keeps his rage in check. “You manipulative bastard,” he accuses through gritted teeth. “You’re saying I have to pass all these tests, whatever’s in your curriculum, to be able to know the truth about my sister? Who are you to deny me that?”
“I’m not denying you anything,” Ohno says calmly, his eyes on the rest of the trainees. “But as a fightmaster, my job is to make you field ready, and that includes your stability. I need you on your feet out there, not on your knees. With the way you are now, you won’t be able to handle whatever truth you want to know, whatever it is you think you’re prepared to know.”
Nino snorts, trying to resist the urge to punch Ohno in the face. “I get to decide that, not you.”
Ohno turns, meeting his angry eyes with very calm ones. “You’re right, I don’t. But in order to fully comprehend whatever answers you’re looking for, you need to understand what kind of world this is, what kind of world those answers are in.”
“Her world, you mean,” Nino clarifies with narrowed eyes, and Ohno nods. “You’re telling me I need to step into her world, to see what she saw, to feel what she felt, and to do what she did before I get to meet the guy who let her die?”
Ohno takes a deep breath, blinking for a few moments in thought. “All I’m saying is that you need to be ready,” Ohno says, his eyes on the pairs of cadets sparring. “And that I can help you get there as soon as possible.” Ohno tilts his head to the side, gesturing to another set of metal doors at the far corner of the room. “Shall we?”
The fightmaster walks without waiting for his confirmation, and Nino spends a few seconds composing himself before following. Ohno takes him past the metal doors which reveal a hangar, and Nino lays eyes on a set of Jaegers for the first time.
Riisa piloted these things? That girl three minutes younger than him who cried when Nino told her there was no pot of gold at the end of a rainbow when they were five made these things move, gave them life to keep the monsters under the bed? Nino looks at the gigantic mecha and feels overwhelmed. These things- close to the size of the kaijus Nino only saw on the TV back in the evacuation facility in Shimane- are the same things he could only believe provided they were being projected by a monitor screen.
And now he’s clinging to a metal railing to maintain his balance as he looks at not only one but five of them standing side-by-side, with Ohno Satoshi, the fightmaster, expecting him to be ready to pilot one in less than six months from now.
Ohno points to a Jaeger on their right, one that is painted dark blue and looking almost black given the lack of light, but Nino doesn’t need proper lighting to recognize it. It’s the one Riisa took with her to win Nagano back, along with other five prefectures before her death in Yamanashi.
“Storm Sentinel,” Nino whispers, and Ohno nods. Nino turns to the man, unable to look at the robot any longer. “Wasn’t she destroyed? When… when Yamanashi wasn’t taken back.”
Ohno cocks his head. “Damaged, Ninomiya-san,” Ohno corrects him patiently, “not destroyed. She was out of commission for a good while, but the engineers finally got her working again after three long years of silence. She needs a co-pilot.”
Nino frowns at that. “What, the other co-pilot is already decided so you’re only looking for one he’s compatible with? And he’s the guy who let her die, isn’t he?” He laughs- a sarcastic sound that’s less audible given the welding noises going on under their feet. “Why is he returning to pilot these things? Is he that eager to have someone die who’s not him for the second time around?”
Ohno faces him with an unreadable expression. “It’s not my place to tell you what his reasons are even if I know them, as much as it’s not your place to speak on his behalf. You don’t know him yet. I know you’re angry, I know you’re confused and you have a lot of questions only he can answer. But like I said in the combat grounds, you are not ready.” Ohno fixes him a look. “And neither is he.”
He looks at Ohno, feeling utterly confused. “Cut the bullshit,” he demands, despite Ohno being his superior. Nino can’t care any less; he’s only here for someone he lost three years ago and instead of feeling closer to the truth he always craved, he feels farther from it than ever before. “If he’s not ready and I’m not ready, then you’re not keeping your promise. You brought me here because she asked you to. I can deal with this, even when I know that this is only partially true and you’re not telling me the rest. What I can’t deal with is you patronizing me. Why do I have to prove myself to you just so that I can hear something you have no right to hide from me in the first place? You said you weren’t denying me anything and yet here you are, standing in the way as I try to find my answers. Why do I have to undergo ranger training just to find what my sister’s last thoughts were? Why do I have to be her in order to know her?”
Ohno blinks once before turning back to the Jaegers assembled in front of them. Nino is trying hard not to reach out and push Ohno off the ledge. He’s angry, frustrated, and exhausted. Angry at Ohno being ambiguous, frustrated with himself and what he has to go through, and exhausted from the pangs of guilt catching up to him every time he stops running to catch his breath.
Hasn’t it been enough?
Ohno lets out a deep breath. “No one’s asking you to be her,“ Ohno claims, his fingers tapping against the metal railing in a beat Nino recognizes as an X-Japan song after listening to it intently. “But you’re right about one thing. You need to prove that you are ready to hear the truth.”
Nino can only say one word at this point. “Why?”
Ohno smiles, a sad one that somehow makes him look twice his age. Briefly, Nino wonders what kinds of horrors Ohno has seen in his career as a fightmaster. How many cadets of his died in the war? How many aspiring rangers did he train personally, only for them to never come back?
“Because it’s what she deserves,” Ohno declares, meeting his eyes sadly. Nino looks away after a moment; a bit of Ohno’s involvement now sinking in.
“You trained her,” Nino says, and it’s not even a question. “You watched over her and declared her combat ready, and one day she just didn’t come back.” He bites his lip and shuts his eyes, hearing the beating of his heart despite the activity in the hangar surrounding them. He’s trembling, and for the first time, he believes Ohno’s statement from earlier.
He’s not ready. He can’t take this.
He feels Ohno’s hand on his elbow, a soft touch that somehow reminds him that he’s not alone. “Come,” Ohno murmurs, already pulling him. He didn’t confirm any of Nino’s assumptions, but Nino knows his hunch is right because of the change in Ohno’s voice. Ohno tugs at him once more, and Nino lets go of the railing to let Ohno guide him.
“I’ll show you where the cafeteria is.”
--
His first day ended with Ohno giving him a tour around the Shatterdome and giving him a tattered pamphlet for the Academy which included all the information about the curriculum Nino was signing up for. Ohno assigned him as the newest recruit under Delta Company and even went as far as introducing him to the company leader, Miyake from Kanagawa. Apparently, Ohno knew more than enough about Nino to be able to say that Nino came from Tokyo, although that bit might have been unnecessary given that most people he encountered in the Shatterdome so far immediately recognized his resemblance to his sister.
With twenty recruits in each of the Academy’s companies, Nino felt that being recruit number 20 made the other nineteen people he was assigned to share the room with eye him with either contempt or curiosity.
Refusing to find out which one it was, he walked up to his bunk and slept, aware that he was up for an early start the following morning according to the pamphlet Ohno handed to him.
He manages to make it to the first cut after eight weeks of combined learning and training. He learns more about robot mechanics and kaiju in here than in the hours he spent following Riisa’s victories back in the days. The more he learns, the more he realizes that he can never live up to his sister’s name.
It doesn’t help that there are recruits who look at him as if he knows what he’s doing. He often gets the “so you’re here to continue the legacy?” kind of questions and it takes a lot on his part not to punch that person in the face for asking. He wonders if that’s all his sister was to them, to everyone in this Shatterdome: a legacy. Was she ever human to them? Did they ever see that she was just a little girl trying to make a difference because not a lot of people were willing to?
Nino wonders if these people around him see him for who he truly is. He’s aware that to them he’s the twin, the brother who came three years later to finish what the sister started. The prodigal son. They expect much from him because of that, and while Nino doesn’t care if he lives up to the expectations or not, he wonders if this is what Riisa herself would have wanted for him to do.
He doesn’t know if he’s moving forward or not. He’s making progress, yes. He’s turned out to be a very promising cadet despite his reservations about the whole program, but that doesn’t help him sleep at night. At night, he hears the deafening roar of the kaiju from the first wave, and when he tries to shut his eyes tightly to remind himself that it’s all in his head, he sees his sister leaving for good instead. He finds no consolation from acting on his choices, no comfort in whatever he’s doing. He’s doing it for her, but he doesn’t even know if it’s what she wanted from him.
In his stay in the Shatterdome, he comes to know most of the people his sister interacted with. Sometimes Ohno introduces them to him, sometimes they look at him like they’ve seen a ghost and it’s then that Nino knows that they knew her. He laughs when the latter happens, when they look so struck upon looking at his face because it’s what he feels every time he looks at a mirror. He laughs because he doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t know how to describe what being haunted feels like, how it feels it be followed around by a ghost who looks exactly like you. They won’t understand.
He’s on his tenth week when Ohno introduces him to one Sakurai Sho, the Shatterdome’s psych analyst. Sakurai shakes his hand with force and conviction, and for a moment Nino feels envious about how stable Sakurai seems to be.
Then again, Sakurai’s not the one who lost a twin and is being haunted because of it.
“So your job is to tinker with people’s brains like the engineers out there tinker with the Jaegers?” Nino asks, when Ohno has excused himself and he and Sakurai are standing in line in the cafeteria. “Evaluate if they make the cut by seeing if their mind can carry somebody else’s consciousness aside from their own?”
Sakurai sighs. “I wish it was that easy.” He doesn’t elaborate anymore, but when Nino makes it to the second cut, he finds out that Sakurai’s job is to make sure rangers have their wits with them, especially after surviving a kaiju attack.
“Most people here are traumatized,” Sakurai explains. “Some are traumatized after piloting a Jaeger and seeing a kaiju up close, and yet there are those who haven’t even set foot inside a Jaeger and are no less traumatized than the ones who did. My job is to make sure these people can control the trauma and can handle its manifestations. We’re all damaged in our own way, Ninomiya-san. But that doesn’t mean we’re beaten.”
Nino eventually puts Sakurai in the same category as he put Ohno in: idealists. Ohno has his idealistic views on how the world can be, provided they push back with enough force to delay doomsday for one more day. Sakurai, meanwhile, has his idealistic views on how people can be provided they’re given the right push.
More often than not, Nino feels like he’s an ongoing experiment for these people, here for their combined entertainment and curiosity. Will he turn out to be like Riisa? Will he make it past through the third and final cut? Will he stand inside a Jaeger and help the resistance? What if he doesn’t get to do any of that? Are there bets under his name, something like ‘those betting on Ninomiya Kazunari making it, please place your bets on the left’?
Sometimes he thinks on Sakurai’s claim that they’re all damaged. Nino won’t deny it. He’s here in an attempt to silence his ghosts but he feels them louder and more noticeable than ever before, like they’re gaining on him and he’s running out of places to go and hide. He’s here to find answers but instead of feeling closer to them, he feels as if all ways leading to them are currently barred shut. He often wonders what it’ll be like once he meets the person Riisa was drift compatible with. Ohno has been particularly skilled at dodging his questions and evading him entirely.
If he meets that person, that one who holds all the answers he’s sought ever since her death, he wonders if the hatred that he let fester inside him will finally expose itself. He wonders if he can handle standing in that person’s presence and not blame him for everything, all because he can’t find it in him to blame himself. Vengeance is like an open wound, and Nino’s has been ignored for too long.
Damaged, Sakurai said.
Nino laughs, thinking that Sakurai’s still an idealist for his desire to help every single damaged person in this Shatterdome, but at least he’s realistic enough to acknowledge that they’re all fucked up in their own little ways.
--
Nino continues training. He completes the fourteen-hour long daily training in the combat halls, mastering his moves and letting himself be pushed to his physical and mental limits. He has Ohno’s ever-watchful eye on him as he strikes down one cadet from another, claiming one victory after the other.
People tell him he shows a lot of promise. Nino can’t wait to show them what’s inside his head, the final step that will determine if he can do what Riisa did or not, if he deserves to learn about her final moments in the field or not.
He’s pinning down a fellow cadet from the Beta Company when Ohno declares, “That’ll be enough, Nino.” Ohno has grown familiar with him, but instead of using his given name, Ohno took the liberty of going with the way most people referred to him. Maybe Riisa told him about the nickname during her stay. Nino doesn’t ask anymore. Just to know that she walked the same halls as he’s doing now, that she did the same things, has him wanting to throw a sheet over himself and stay there until the ghosts have calmed down.
Nino lets go, offering a hand to his sparring partner to help him get back on his feet, and when Nino looks up, Ohno’s eyes are different. Nino’s aware that they haven’t found anyone compatible with him yet and time is running out. He’s nearing the end of the training and he can’t step inside a simulator without anyone deemed to be drift compatible with him.
It’s then he notices someone else standing beside Ohno, someone taller with broader shoulders still evident in his dark jumpsuit. When the stranger looks up and their eyes meet, Nino is filled with so many things at once: shock, followed by recognition, and finally, anger.
He trembles, but it’s unlike the trembling he felt coursing through him during the first wave when Riisa had to hand him a glass of water with shaking hands. He’s quaking for a different reason this time, and it’s the fact that he’s finally staring at the face of the person who stood beside Riisa in all those victories. Nino has forgotten his name, deemed it unimportant after his sister’s death, but he wouldn’t forget the face. The large, almost blaring features, the signs of weariness evident in every shift of his expression.
It’s him.
Any confirmation Nino would ever need is on the man’s face. He looks cornered, like someone forgot to lock the door and all the monsters came rushing in at the same time. He looks at Nino like he has seen a ghost, and Nino wants to laugh because that’s exactly what it is. He’s the spitting image of the one that died in this man’s hands, and it takes all of Nino’s control not to grab a fencing sword nearby and challenge the man to a spar that’ll be far from friendly.
“Nino.” Ohno’s voice coaxes him, and he’s breathing hard as he turns to the fightmaster.
“After weeks of evading me, this is how you intend to keep your promise?” Nino asks through clenched teeth and equally clenched fists. His eyes are still on the stranger with Ohno, and it takes all of Nino’s effort not to cross the room and demands the answers for himself. “Ninomiya Kazunari,” he says slowly, introducing himself. Everyone in the sparring hall has their eyes on them now, but Nino doesn’t care. “Though I suppose you already know that, having been inside her brain so many times. We meet at last.”
He’s seeing red and he’s trapped in a haze that he knows that if this man with Ohno says the wrong thing, Nino can no longer account for what he might do.
“Matsumoto,” is all the man says, and Nino turns to Ohno.
“May I spar with him, fightmaster?” he asks respectfully, and he sees the recognition in Ohno’s eyes. Nino has never addressed Ohno using his position in the Academy until now, and he knows Ohno can see the unmistakable intent in his eyes.
“I didn’t bring him here to fight you,” Ohno says quickly, and Nino laughs, a rather hollow sound that silences everyone murmuring around them. Nino walks to a nearby shelf and grabs two bo staffs, tossing the other to Matsumoto who catches it reflexively.
Ohno looks disapproving, but Nino won’t let someone like him stop him now. “I’m not interested in your intentions, Ohno-san. I’m interested in his,” he says, pointing to Matsumoto using the staff in his right hand as he walks back to the center of the hall.
Nino sneers, finally remembering the name. “Because you didn’t come here to just meet the ghost in the flesh, did you, Jun-kun?”
The other cadets make a clearing, and Nino waits in the center. Ohno shakes his head in disappointment at him, but damn him. Nino played the good pupil for too long. He has excelled in his studies for it to come to this.
“You are not ready,” Ohno says firmly, although whether he says that to Nino or to Matsumoto or to the both of them, Nino isn’t sure.
But Nino looks at Ohno, eyes defiant. “I get to decide that now. I spent weeks hearing you say that. But now that he’s here,” he pauses, pointing at Matsumoto once more, “I get to decide that for myself. And I’ve been preparing myself for this.”
He sees Ohno and Matsumoto talk it over and Nino waits impatiently, maneuvering his staff under his arm and assuming the stance. He catches Ohno’s almost imperceptible nod of agreement after a moment, and Matsumoto turns to him with resignation in his features as he unbuttons the top of his jumpsuit to tie the sleeves around his narrow waist, revealing a shirt underneath.
Matsumoto crosses to the center of the room and stops in front of him, and Nino wonders what it’s like for him. Is it like preparing himself to fight Riisa once more? Does he remember the first time he and Riisa sparred in this hall as he faces Nino now?
“I thought I taught you never to attack in anger,” Ohno says from the corner of the room, and Nino smirks as he squares his shoulders, seeing Matsumoto assume his ready stance.
“You taught me a great many things, fightmaster,” Nino acknowledges, never looking away from Matsumoto’s eyes. The same eyes that saw his sister die three-something years ago. How does Nino look to him right now?
“This isn’t me being angry,” Nino admits as he and Matsumoto circle each other. “This is me trying to find the one thing you promised me.”
Nino makes the first strike, lunging and aiming for Matsumoto’s side, only for his attack to be deflected by a perfectly placed staff. He’s good, Nino will give him that, but Nino worked hard to get to this point. He pivots, twisting his trunk to evade a strike aimed at his chin, and crouches down to sweep his staff under Matsumoto’s feet to knock the man off balance, but Matsumoto jumps at the right time and rolls onto his back to put distance between them.
“It’s not a fight,” Ohno calls out as a reminder as he and Matsumoto stare each other down. “We don’t fight here, we measure compatibility. Don’t let your anger dictate your moves.”
Matsumoto makes the first move this time, changing his grip on his staff to aim for Nino’s temple, but Nino ducks down and twists his wrist to land a strike near Matsumoto’s eye. He stops at the right moment, the smoothness of his staff resting against Matsumoto’s skin but not inflicting damage, and Nino meets the man’s eyes before smirking.
“You’re not going to lose to a cadet just because he has her face, are you?” he asks, and something flashes over Matsumoto’s eyes. “I don’t want your sympathy. I didn’t come all this way for your pity.”
Matsumoto pushes his staff away using his own, shifting his grip on the wood to aim at his side, and Nino sidesteps to evade the lunge. “What was it like to let her die?” Nino asks in a voice quiet enough so only Matsumoto can hear him. “What was it like to watch her die when you could have saved her?”
Nino blocks a blow aimed at his head, seeing fear and guilt in Matsumoto’s expressive eyes. “You were still connected to her when it happened,” Nino says carefully, and he watches how it affects Matsumoto, how he blinks the memories away and how his grip on the staff tightens. Nino flicks his staff upward, aiming for Matsumoto’s chin, but the move is blocked by a precisely positioned staff, its tip resting right at his throat.
“Jun,” he hears Ohno call out softly, like a reminder, and Nino uses that distraction to knock Matsumoto on his back, but before he can deliver a blow aimed at the other man’s temple, Matsumoto manages to roll over and sweep under his feet, making him lose his balance and land on his back instead. Nino gets the tip of the man’s staff pointed to his face, and sneers.
“If anyone’s keeping tabs,” he calls out for everyone to hear before maneuvering his feet to entangle his legs with Matsumoto’s to knock the man down, and Nino gets on his knee to rest his staff against the man’s cheek, “we’re now at two-two.”
He hears some of the recruits in the hall cheer his name, an odd chorus of Nino along with shouts of “best of three!” Nino thinks it won’t take much on his part to strike Matsumoto down. But Matsumoto pushes his staff away to do a forward roll to get on his feet, his knuckles white from the grip he has on his staff.
He has never answered to any of Nino’s taunts and questions, to any of Nino’s reminders of what happened, and Nino wonders how he keeps it together. Nino can see fear in his expression, hesitation in his moves, and restraint determining all of his actions, as if he’s terrified of what he could do to Nino and afraid of Nino at the same time.
Sakurai’s voice resonates in Nino’s head. Matsumoto’s clearly damaged, probably not too different from Storm Sentinel herself after the failed siege of Yamanashi, but unlike the Jaeger that was restored to optimum performance after three years, Matsumoto was never the same. What kind of horrors did he see, Nino wonders? What was it like for him to be there but unable to do anything?
Nino suddenly feels conflicted. He’s angry at this man, but he’s also angry at himself. He feels guilty for what he said earlier, all those insensitive things he said out of rage. The vengeful feelings remain, but they seem to have been quietened, even subsided. He thinks his guilt is not too different from Matsumoto’s in origin, just different in manifestation. Matsumoto won’t look him in the eye for too long, like he’s unable to look at Nino’s face because of what it reminds him of. Nino’s guilt manifests in the way he dials down his strikes, the way he shuts his mouth as he delivers one blow after another, all of which Matsumoto easily evades and blocks.
Ohno’s claim from earlier, that he’s not ready, rings in his ears, and Nino finally acknowledges it to be true when Matsumoto does a sweep maneuver and places the tip of his bo staff right between Nino’s eyes, leaving Nino effectively trapped.
“Two-three,” Ohno calls out before declaring it’s enough, and Matsumoto moves away from him quickly. He offers a shaky hand to help Nino up but Nino pushes it away, getting on his feet all by himself.
He meets Ohno’s eyes. “You’re not yet ready, cadet,” Ohno says in a voice that leaves no room for argument, and Nino straightens his back and squares his shoulders, looking at the spot behind Ohno as he asks for his dismissal. Ohno grants it with a nod, and Nino refuses to meet anyone’s eyes as he deposits the staff back in the rack, but he can feel Matsumoto’s piercing gaze on him as he walks away and departs the combat hall.
Part 2