We Don't Need Another Hero [xxxHolic/Other]

[sophiap]

Title: We Don't Need Another Hero
Series: xxxHolic, other (click on the second cut tag if you want to know, or see how long it takes you to figure it out)
Characters: Yuuko, others (again, see second cut tag)
Rating: PG
Summary: Our childhood heroes can shape who we become in the future, and a childish wish can impact the fate of the entire world.
Notes: Happy birthday, aishuu!


His mother yells at him to come back, but he's far enough ahead of her that he can always claim he didn't hear her. He's grinning broadly and slaloming through the crowd in a way she can never hope to match, which is why he shouted out race you to the park! and took off as if the entire world was on fire behind him.

Yeah, he'll get a scolding later, but all 'kaa-san ever does is yell, so why worry? Okay, maybe she'll make him stand outside until she's satisfied that he's properly shamed and sorry, or maybe she'll even withhold dessert from him tonight, but that is nothing, nothing compared to the sheer cool factor of having his friends see him show up at the park all by himself, with no grownup in tow.

Besides, how fun is it just to run as fast as he can, pelting down the sidewalk, arms stretched out so he can feel the air pushing up under his palms? If he were only lighter, maybe he could fly. But he can't, and for now it's enough to zig and zag, banking his arms and making growling engine noises under his breath as now in his mind he's encased in a bird-shaped mecha, dodging past asteroids and evading enemy fire.

It's half a block to the park, but he's going at light speed, and in his condor mecha, he'll be there in no time flat. He's Condor Joe, and he's the coolest pilot ever, and he's the king of the playground.

But pride comes before a fall, and it's not a stray asteroid or a laser blast that brings him down, but a crack in the sidewalk that wasn't there last week. He crashes down in a heap of flying mecha parts, crushing reality, and two badly skinned knees.

He rolls over, pushing himself into a sitting position. He whimpers a bit when this grinds a shard of gravel deeper into his palm. He immediately looks around to see if anyone has heard or seen his moment of weakness.

No one has, and he's not sure if he's glad or not. He doesn't want anyone to see him in his shame, but in a just world shouldn't someone be picking him up and fussing over him by now? He can't even hear his mother calling, and for once, instead of the warm rush of pride at having left her in the dust, there's something cold and jagged that he tells himself is not fear. Nope. Not fear. Not fear at all. He's six, and he's a big boy, now. Not a cry-baby momma's boy. No way, no sir.

He gulps back a sob and wonders where she is.

"Are you okay?" The voice comes from over to his right. There's tons of people walking past, but he can still hear the woman's voice as if they are the only ones on the street.

"Yeah..." His voice wobbles a little, and he wipes his nose on the back of his arm. There's a big scuff on the middle of his favorite Gatchaman tee shirt, and for some reason that hurts more than the skinned knee.

There's a break in the crowd (and why isn't anyone offering to help him?) and he looks over to his right. There's a fence there, now, and a gate. A woman is leaning against the gatepost, arms crossed loosely over her abdomen. She's wearing leggings and pink rubber shoes, and a jade green dress that looks more like a long tee shirt with the shoulders torn out. 'Kaa-san wouldn't like it--she's always commenting about the way girls dress--but he thinks it looks kind of cool.

He looks past her, through the gate. There's a house back there. A big one. Well, bigger than his family's house, anyway.

"That's supposed to be an empty lot in there," he informs her. The fact that it isn't now doesn't surprise him too much. After all, in his world, tanks can turn into robots, and it makes as much sense that giant mechanical eagles and swans and swallows would soar through space as it does that huge, awkward looking airplanes would go to exotic (and probably made-up) places like New York.

"Sometimes it is," she says. She comes out into the street, and for some reason, wherever she is, the crowd isn't. There are hundreds of people out on the streets, but she never has to dodge or wait for anyone to get out of her way. She crouches down beside him, and her long black hair nearly touches the ground. "But today, it's not. Not for you, anyway."

She takes hold of his hand, somehow managing to avoid the scraped parts, and stands up, pulling him up to his feet as she does. "C'mon. I'll get you cleaned up, and in exchange, you can keep me company for a few minutes."

He nods. He knows he's not supposed to go off with strangers, but this woman seems to fall into an entirely different category. In fact, he thinks he'd be in a world of trouble--much more than 'stand outside until you're sorry' trouble--if he doesn't go with her.

"'kay," he whispers. He's six, and this year he's going to be in elementary school and everything, but for some reason he feels very young again. It's funny, because this woman looks a lot younger than 'kaa-san, but at the same time, it's almost like being around his obaa-chan.

"Huh. 'Science Ninja Team Gatchaman?'" she says, looking at his shirt. They're walking through her front yard. There's a big porch surrounding her house, and he can see a small, low table set up there, and a couple of cushions. "I heard that was back in re-runs, and I keep meaning to watch it again."

He looks at her, eyes wide with awe. A grown-up? Watching anime?

"Cat's Eye is still one of my favorites," she says. "But I adore Gatchaman. Jun is my favorite, of course. I used to have a pink mini-dress just like hers. And white go-go boots." She seems lost in thought for a moment.

"Joe's the coolest." That's just a fact. The sun rises in the east and Asakura Joe is cooler than ice. "Jun's okay, though," he admits, just to stay on the woman's good side. "For a girl."

For some reason, the woman stops and laughs long and hard at this. He demands to know what's so funny, and she just shakes her head and thumbs a tear from the corner of her eye.

"Just wait," she says, and then repeats okay... for a girl as if he had just told her the best joke ever. "Things change."

"You're prettier than she is, anyway." He means every word of it. He's never seen anyone prettier, but he still manages to make it sound sullen. Even so, she beams, and he knows he's said exactly the right thing.

She leads him up to the porch, and his eyes are so drawn to the big plate of chocolate cookies and the two frost-covered bottles of Coca Cola that it never registers that there is also a small first aid kit sitting out on the porch as well.

"Go on and have a seat." She guides him to one of the cushions, and he sits rather than kneels, legs dangling over the edge of the porch. "Let me get your hands cleaned up, and then you can have some cookies. And since I've brought you into my home, I think introductions are probably in order, hm? My name is Ichihara Yuuko," she says as she pulls some cotton and iodine out of the first aid kit.

He introduces himself politely, between whimpers, as Yuuko plucks out a couple of pieces of gravel that were embedded in his palm, and when he calls her 'Ichihara-san,' the way 'kaa-san would want him to, she gently tells him that it's okay to use her given name.

"After all, we're friends now, aren't we? And you're keeping me company in exchange for cleaning you up," she repeats. He knows he's missing something, but he doesn't know what, and doesn't much care. That's how it goes, when you're dealing with grownups. A few dabs of iodine, and a thorough wiping down with a warm, damp towel, and he's given leave to pounce on the cookies. They're warm, and chewy and perfect.

When she offers him a soda, he accepts eagerly even though, as he tells her, "'Kaa-san won't let me have any." He takes another swallow of the cold, sweet, fizzy, caffeinated beverage. "She says it gives her a headache, but I don't know why she gets a headache when I drink soda because it's me drinking it and not her."

"I can't imagine," Yuuko says, and again he feels like there's some joke he doesn't get. But it's okay, because there are cookies, and Yuuko is dabbing something cool on his knees that takes the sting away. Next, she wipes the dirt from the Gatchaman picture on his shirt, and he squirms because it tickles a bit, but she keeps on dabbing with a damp cloth, and before long, he can see Jinpei and Ryu again.

And all the time, she's talking to him, and it's not like his 'kaa-san, lecturing him about how this is the sort of thing that happens to little boys who are disobedient and run off. Instead, she's talking to him about Gatchaman (she's seen all of the episodes, even the ones he hasn't seen yet!) and Samurai Troopers and Dragonball and Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars. She even knows the old stories, things about the Shinsengumi, Miyamoto Musashi, Takezo Kensei, Susano-ou...

And Yuuko gets it. She gets that Han Solo and Okita Soushi live in the same universe. She gets that somewhere, there really are space fighters and super powers and magic swords. There must be. She doesn't think it's weird that he wants to see what would happen if Captain Kirk ran into Goku one day (it could happen,right, and don't tell him that it couldn't...)

"But Gatchaman's your favorite, right?" She's now sitting up on the porch beside him, sipping at her own soda.

"Yup!" It wasn't his favorite a few weeks ago, and before that Dragonball was his favorite, and before that it was Star Wars. His 'kaa-san tells him he'll have a different favorite before New Year's, but what does she know? "And Condor Joe is the best!"

"Better even than Ken?" Her smile is mischievous. "Ken's the main character, you know. He's the hero."

He shrugs that aside. "Joe's still way cooler, even if he's only second in command. Same way Han Solo's way cooler than Luke, even if Luke's got the force and the cool sword and all that."

"But you haven't seen all of the episodes yet," she says, and this time there's something in her smile that once again reminds him of obaa-san, only older.

"So?" He shrugs. And since there's no one who's going to tell him not to, he takes another cookie. "I'm still going to be Condor Joe when I grow up. Or maybe Han Solo," he adds, just to make sure all the bases are covered. Despite his newfound devotion to Joe, Han has gained only a little tarnish in the past few months.

When he says this, there's a strange look on Yuuko's face. She's not angry. At least, he doesn't think she's angry. It's almost like she's pleased by what he's said, but at the same time, it makes him wonder if coming in here and drinking her soda and eating her cookies was really such a good idea after all. After all, this house wasn't here yesterday.

"Are you a witch?" he asks, then claps both hands to his mouth and stares at her, wide-eyed. He shouldn't have said that, he shouldn't he shouldn't...

For a moment, all he gets is a blank look, then she bursts out laughing, bending over and holding on to her stomach. He stares at her in shock, and he's not sure if he wants to laugh or cry or run. He loves reading about magic and while he wants to believe that there are houses that appear out of nowhere, it's another thing to be right there in the middle of it.

And shouldn't 'kaa-san be looking for him by now? He hopes she'll walk by the gate and see him in here and come get him, no matter what kind of trouble he'll be in.

"It's okay, it's okay," she says, and once again, she's the kind woman who bandaged his knees and gave him soda and cookies (in exchange for his company, he reminds himself, still not sure why this was important).

"So, you're not a witch?"

"Actually, I am, but don't worry, I don't plan to eat you." But then she smiles wickedly. "Or maybe I do!" she squeals, and then she grabs the hand that doesn't have a cookie and pretends to nibble on the tips of his fingers.

He shrieks in surprise, and she gets him laughing long enough to think that maybe it's okay, and that she's a good witch. Sort of like Glinda, maybe.

"Her style's a little too flouncy for me," Yuuko says, even though he hadn't said a single thing about Oz. From inside the house, he thinks he hears a little girl (two little girls?) chanting flouncy! flouncy! in a cheerful echo. He looks at her for reassurance.

"Don't worry, I told them to stay inside. This is, well..." She peers out into the middle distance, her soda bottle cradled in her hands as if she is holding a cup of tea. "I'm called a witch, and sometimes I even refer to myself a witch, but I'm not sure that's the best word for it. In fact, I'm not sure there is a best word for what I am." She stands up, laces her hands over her head, and rises up on tip-toes, stretching. Her long hair flutters in the wind, and he wonders why she doesn't have wings. She should have wings. Butterfly wings. Maybe he'll try to draw that in art class tomorrow. He asks her if she would mind.

"That would be sweet. I have a feeling that drawings may be very important to you, one day. I'd pay attention to them, if I were you." She stands up and holds out a hand to him. "C'mon. Grab a cookie for the road, and let's go. We need to get you to the park. We've been dawdling here long enough."

He puts down the bottle, grabs a cookie, and reaches out with his free hand. But before he can take her hand, he freezes.

"'kaa-san," he whispers. She'll be at the park by now. She has to be. She'll be looking for him, and when she doesn't find him...

This is going to be a whole new level of trouble. The cookies sit uneasily in his stomach. This is going to be more than being told to stand outside. This is going to be more than having no dessert. This is going to be no park, no TV, no fun until he's seven.

Yuuko sighs. Then she hunches down and rests a hand on top of his head. "Your mother isn't at the park. She'll be there about ten minutes after we get there."

He looks up at her, blinking back tears. He's had two cookies and an entire bottle of soda. How can she not be at the park? Even 'kaa-san can't get that lost.

"Ten minutes. And she was only two minutes behind you when you came in here. Try to remember that. It may be important, one of these days." And then she straightens up and holds out her hand, and they walk together across her yard and out the gate. He doesn't look back, because something tells him that all he'll see is an empty lot.

"What I do, is I grant wishes."

That gets his interest. It's enough to make him stop worrying about time and trouble. "Really? What kind of wishes?"

"Any kind, as long as they're true wishes."

He nods. "Can you grant my wish?"

They walk on in silence for a moment. He has a cookie in one hand. Yuuko maintains a firm grip on the other. "Maybe," she says. "I don't grant them for free, though."

He tries to calculate how much money he has stashed away. It's not much. "Can I make a trade?"

She nods, the way his teacher does when he gets something right.

"Before I grant your wish--and it may take time, lots of time--you'll have to do me a favor. You may not like it very much."

Another moment of silence, as he tries to figure out what kind of favor she might be talking about. It couldn't be anything worse than cleaning his room, or doing his chores, could it.

"I should say, you may not like it very much at first."

"Okay..." He looks around, trying to see if anyone is listening, because even though he wants to be cool, he is beginning to understand that if people know you want to be cool, that automatically makes you not cool.

"You know how I said I wanted to be Condor Joe when I grow up?" he starts, hesitant and hopeful. He hopes Yuuko doesn't laugh at him.

She doesn't.

"You don't really want to be a mecha pilot, do you?" she asks, but it's not like when 'kaa-san says you don't really want an ice-cream cone, do you? or you don't really want another Transformer, do you? It's a real question, the kind a grown up asks another grownup.

"And why Condor Joe?" she asks. "Why not Ken? Or Luke Skywalker?"

He has to think about that. They're the heroes, right? It's Ken's picture that's front and center and bigger than the others on his shirt. Luke is the one who is in the center of the poster. Luke is the one with the sword. And the mission. Han? Han has a beat up old ship, and he's a crook, and he even runs away. And sometimes, although he hates to admit it about his god and one true idol, sometimes Joe... isn't very nice.

He looks down at his feet, and tries to think of why he doesn't want to be the hero. It's like saying that he's not good enough or strong enough or smart enough to be the main character, and that... well, that feels kind of like not trying, or quitting before he even gets started.

"Because, well..." again, he looks around, and even though he can tell that no one is paying any attention to him, his voice drops to a whisper. "Because they're bad ass."

He waits for the laughter, and there is laughter, but it's a gentle chuckle that is far from the mockery he was expecting. And there's no chiding for saying a bad word, even if he did do it in a whisper.

"And... and because Joe keeps on saving Ken, and Han came back and helped Luke blow up the Death Star even though he ran away at first, and they couldn't have done it without them, and so they're heroes too, right? Even if they're not the main characters?"

"Very true. A hero needs a sidekick," she says, and the way she says it, it sounds like a law, kind of like when 'kaa-san says that he has to wash his hands before a meal. "And it's very important that a hero has the right sidekick. And is that what you want? Is that your wish? To be that sidekick?"

"I guess," he mutters, as if this wasn't the most important thing in his whole, long life.

"You know it's going to take a while, don't you?"

He nods, and he tries to look resolved. If he can be as awesomely cool as Condor Joe or Han Solo, he can wait five whole years if he has to.

"You may even forget all about making this wish, and agreeing to this payment."

Yeah, right. Like he could ever forget about meeting a real live witch who lives in a vanishing house (and more importantly, a witch who likes all the same anime he does). He'll no more forget about her than he will ever lose his devotion to all things Condor Joe and Gatchaman.

They arrive at the park, and instead of letting him go on to meet up with his friends, she keeps on walking, taking him towards the part of the playground he doesn't like as much. All this part has are dorky concrete and plastic animals. Yeah, you can sit on them, but they don't do anything or go anywhere. They're not like monkey bars, where you can swing around and make yourself go flying through the air. ('Kaa-san hates when he does that, and she's always trying to take him to go play on the animals.)

Maybe Yuuko isn't quite as cool as he thought.

She draws him to a halt, and points over to one of the animals, a concrete duck. There's a kid sitting there, and his heart sinks.

"See that boy over there?" she says, hunching down so her mouth is right by his ear. She points at the kid. He's just sitting there on the stupid duck, with a stupid smile on his stupid face. He's wearing glasses (how uncool!) and a v-neck sweater and a tie that makes him look like he's in his school uniform even though it's a Sunday.

Rich kid, he thinks, recognizing the other boy at once. They go to the same school, and even though they're not in the same class, he knows the kid's reputation. Spoiled brat. Momma's boy. Weirdo. Bully magnet.

He's losing coolness points by the minute just by being this close to the kid.

"Remember," she whispers, "Clark Kent was a dork with glasses, and Luke was just a farm boy, and Joe lives in a trailer."

"Do I have to?" He knows he's whining, but he doesn't care. He didn't know the price would be this high.

"You can always back out, you know. Han Solo didn't have to come back."

Yes, he thinks, but this is worse than being shot at by TIE fighters. Much worse.

But if Han didn't come back, people would have died. If Joe had quit and left the team, people would have died.

And Peter Parker was kind of a dork before he became Spiderman...

"But why him? What's so special about him?"

Yuuko shakes her head. "That's something you'll have to figure out. That both of you will have to figure out." She smiles at him, and it's another one of those expressions that he knows he's not old enough to understand yet. "Let's just say that I have a particular interest in him. A professional interest, let's call it. And that's all you need to know right now."

Maybe, if he were a little bit older, he might wonder why he should believe her. But he's six, and that's exactly the right age to be able to believe in what's important and what's true, no matter how likely or unlikely it is. So he nods, and steels himself for the task, actually pumping his arms and taking a couple of deep breaths.

"You're going to be his friend," she tells him, even though he knew what her price was going to be the instant she pointed to the stupid kid on the stupid duck. "His best friend."

And then, she steps away, and it's as if the world is finally paying attention to him again. He waves at the kid, barely lifting his hand and moving it about an inch or two. Yuuko said he had to be friends with the dork, but she didn't say he had to be obvious about it.

Of course, the kid doesn't pay a lick of attention.

Well, there's only one thing to do about it. He sighs, and stoops down to pick up a rock. He wings it towards the dorky kid so that the rock skips off the duck's head. The kid looks up, startled and strangely hopeful. He gives a wavering smile, like he hopes it was a friendly overture, but has finally begun to suspect that things like having rocks thrown at you probably don't lead to anything good.

It's almost enough to make him turn around and forget about the whole thing, wish or no wish.

But then the kid gets a good look at his shirt, and that stupid face lights up with the biggest smile in the whole wide world. "Ah! Gatchaman? Who's your favorite?"

"Joe," he mutters, stalking over to the kid as if he's going to his own execution. But then the kid's smile get even bigger, as impossible as that might seem.

"I like them all," he says, "but Joe is cool. He's awesome."

And okay, he's lost probably all the cool points he could possibly collect in his entire life, but it's hard not to return that smile. And he did just say that Joe was cool.

As he gets closer to the kid, he suddenly remembers that he's still got a big old chocolate cookie. He breaks it in half and holds out one piece. "Here," he says gruffly, noticing how the kid's hand kind of hesitates before taking the cookie, almost as if he expects it to be yanked back. "You're Nakamura Hiro, right?"

And then he grins, a roguish smile in response to Hiro's nervous, innocent one. "I'm Masahashi Ando, and I'm gonna be your best friend."

Ten minutes later, when Ando's mother finally tracks him down, the two boys are lost in comparing their favorite moments from their favorite shows. They have a lot of them in common, and they even like most of the same characters (with just enough disagreement to keep things interesting).

Even better, Hiro knows about all sorts of shows Ando's never heard of, and even has them on tape. Before Ando knows what he's doing, and without even thinking about cool points, Ando has agreed to come over to Hiro's house for a visit.

Funny thing is, though, Hiro hasn't heard of one of Ando's favorite series. "It's about this witch, and she has a disappearing house, and she grants wishes..." his voice trails off as a confused Hiro shakes his head sadly. It's not important, though, because soon they're on to other things, and if Ando can't quite remember what made him go up and talk to the weird kid, it doesn't matter.

After all, they're best friends.

* * *

The other series here is "Heroes." It's wonderful to have a live-action series that can be crossed over with some of my favorite anime series without too much contrivance. The characters in question are (obviously) Ando and Hiro. I couldn't help thinking that Hiro's power would be of particular interest to Yuuko.

Gatchaman was released in the U.S. as a dub entitled "Battle of the Planets." Joe was 'Jason' in the dub, and Ken was 'Mark.' I think BotP marked my first crush on a fictional character, now that I think about it.