Chapter Text
“Oh, my head,” came a musical voice from nearby and I groaned as I sat up.
My injuries from Usagi and Kage’s world, combined with the spattering I’d gained fighting the ribbon-demon, had left my body screaming at me. “Feeling any better?”
Kage blinked, looking down at me from the bed. “Michel, I … where am I?”
“My room – I figured coming in here got you away from prying eyes,” I said, hefting myself to my feet. I said room as if it was really all that grand, when it was really just a big cement wedge-room like all my brothers, though I’d put up a handful of posters and managed to get Don to build a huge wall-to-wall shelf unit on the far wall where I could store my DVDs and comic books. Of course, there were two shelves where Klunk kept her toys as well, up on top where she could see the room in its entirety and defend her tiny queendom.
“Then … we …?” Kage looked down at the bed, fingers in a death grip around chunks of the blanket I’d thrown over him.
Just as I was putting a hand on top of one of Kage’s, my bedroom door busted in with a crash. “Mikey! Get away from him,” Raph barked.
“Nice of you to knock, bro,” I muttered, glaring at Raph and then my door, barely still attached to its hinges. What was worth destroying my door?
“You’re going back to your world now!” Raphael yelled, pointing at Kage. After whatever Leo put the poor Rabbit through, he seemed to think of nothing to do in response to this current assault than to burrow into my pillows and try getting the blanket over his head.
Klunk, however, knew precisely what to do – especially when confronted with Raphael – she put herself in front of him, a hissing, scratching ball of orange fur as I scowled at my brother. “First you break my door and then you frighten my guest,” I told him, slugging him in the shoulder. It wasn’t nearly as satisfying as I thought it’d be. Then again, he still did a lot more weight training than the rest of us. “You can leave! Now!”
“Mikey, you don’t –” Raph blurted out, eyes only momentarily locking with mine before once again glaring at Kage.
“Don’t ‘Mikey’ me, mister,” I said caustically, crossing my arms and fully inserting myself between Raph and the object of his rage.
“You don’t get it,” Raph ground out, shaking his head. “He’s just –”
“Using me?” I finished, smirking when those reddish-brown eyes I’d grown up with widened in surprise.
“How did you …?”
“I’m not stupid, Raph,” I muttered, pinning him with my eyes. “I know you and Usagi talked.”
“How?” The surprised stare was still there.
Part of me – the part that’d really enjoyed goading him in that first Battle Nexus Tournament years ago – smirked. “I saw the two of you standing over near Leo’s room, bro. You weren’t exactly being all that subtle.” I left it at that, though maybe keeping secret the fact that years of late-night TV watching has given me a pretty good ability to read lips. Not perfect of course, but pretty good. Go ahead and ask if I know what you talked about, I mentally dared him. I won’t tell you a thing!
“He needs to go. Now.”
Raph always gets points for pure stubbornness, I give him that, but collectively they seem unable to realize something: I’m just as old as they all are, more or less, and I’m done being ‘protected’ like this. “No.”
Now his eyes focused back on mine. “What?” And then he had the audacity to scowl at me.
“I said ‘no’ and I meant it,” I ground out in return. “Kage is staying until tomorrow evening – this is not negotiable – at which time I will personally take him home.”
“He can go home now. Alone.”
Raphael was obviously being so stubborn now because he didn’t like being told that I wouldn’t just fall into ‘little brother’ mode. But this was important to me – Kage was important to me. I heard him whimper behind me at the tone in Raph’s voice and it lacerated my heart. “He’s going home tomorrow,” I repeated, frowning up at him. “Tonight he stays – in fact he’ll stay here in my room, where you guys won’t bother him – and then I’ll take him … home … tomorrow.” I didn’t like that thought, that Kage’s ‘home’ was so far away from me, but that was how things were right? Can’t magically change it all on my own, now can I?
Raphael’s teeth ground again, audibly. He glared at the blanket-covered Lump-that-was-Kage on my bed, and then looked at me. “Fine.”
“Good,” I told him, “now you can go tell the others what I said before grabbing Don’s tool box.”
“His … why!?” Raph blurted, crossing his arms.
“You’ve got a door to repair,” I told him flatly, pointing over his shoulder. “I’m not dealing with the mess you’ve made – you can do the work yourself.” Now I crossed my own arms and scowled up at him. “Good. As. New.”
When he left, muttering all the way, I turned to face my bed once more. “You can come out now,” I said softly, slowly putting a hand down on what I thought was a hand under the blanket. Klunk meowed, purring a couple times.
Kage pulled the blanket back over his head once more, eyes again locked on the bed and not me. “I shouldn’t stay,” he whispered, shaking. “They don’t want me here.”
“Doesn’t it matter that I want you here?” They were hard words to say, and came out weak because of it, but I got them out like a forced cough.
Kage’s head tipped up my way as Klunk twined herself around his left arm, purring like a cement mixer. “You … you really want me here?”
“Yes.”
Tears fell from those amazing amethyst eyes, and I was overwhelmed by the need to hold Kage close and wipe away those tears. “But you don’t … I mean I haven’t always been …” He curled forward on my bed like a potato bug, hands at the nape of his neck, and sniffled.
“I don’t need to know,” I told Kage softly, and his gaze came back to me just like I’d wanted it to. “You can tell me later, if ya want to, but for right now? For right now I don’t feel the need to know everything about your past, Kage.” I see too much of it in your eyes.
“Oh, Michel,” he breathed, getting to his knees before collapsing against me and wrapping his arms up behind my shoulders. “How can you forgive so easily?”
“What’s there to forgive?” I asked, confused, and enjoying holding him perhaps far too much. “You haven’t hurt me at all, Kage.”
“Leo-kun,” he said simply, and I couldn’t help but flinch. And he felt it. “See,” he said, just as softly, “I’ve hurt you.”
“Hey, you can’t help it,” I told him, tipping my head to the side so that each of us had a shoulder to lean on, though I really would have preferred to kiss him again. Still, the shoulder-thing was useful in watching the door for signs of overhearing little interlopers. “You met Leo first, so I’m not surprised he left a larger impression on ya.”
“You left one as well, Michel,” he told me quietly. “Speaking with Kanto as you did.”
“I’ve been the ‘kid that gets into trouble without really trying’ myself before,” I told him firmly, snorting. “And shell, if you have to do a chore anyway it might as well get a dose of fun infused into it.”
“But the tone you took with him,” he said, breathing on my shoulder and making me shiver. I could have sworn that shiver made him smile a bit, though, and it made me shiver all over again. “You spoke to him as an equal – took Kanto seriously and didn’t raise your voice.”
“I like kids,” I said simply. “Sometimes I think being an adult makes a person try too hard to be serious.”
Kage craned his neck, looking up at me with his violet eyes. “And you don’t like to be serious?”
Now I had the chance to smirk. “Not when it isn’t necessary,” I admitted, chuckling when Klunk head-butted me on the leg to get in on the whole hug thing. “I mean, Leo – for example – spends so much time being serious that I’m amazed he remembers how to joke around or laugh at all.”
Kage’s head dipped a bit, and he passed a few seconds in silence by stroking Klunk repeatedly from the top of her head to the very tip of her tail. I should have warned him that she gets very used to that, and then lesser petting is a disappointment. “He seems sad so much of the time. Why?”
“He sets himself up as a protector,” I told him simply, “and then when somebody gets hurt he blames himself for it.”
Kage nodded, and then smiled as Klunk meowed at him again. “Well, aren’t you an insistent little creature,” he uttered, obviously changing subjects. Klunk leaned up against Kage, purring, and the Rabbit let go of me long enough to pick her up. The silly little goose rubbed her face against his and then proceeded to climb up and arrange herself across his shoulders. “Does this … mean anything … coming from her?”
I smirked, and noticed how he blushed at it. “She likes you – and Klunk’s pretty preferential, let me tell you – generally she’ll only do that if you’re on her list of favorites, really.”
“Really?” He put a furry hand up, letting her rub her face against it like crazy. “How big is this list?”
“Me and you,” I told him casually, moving around the bed and starting for the door.
When I heard no additional footsteps padding after me, I looked back to find Kage kneeling atop my bed and quite stunned. As a matter of fact, one of his ears was flopping a bit lower than the other, and I had to try so hard not to say aloud how cute he was like that! “Just us?”
“Yeah, just you and me,” I said with a smile. “Now come on, oh anointed one, because I need your help.”
“With what?” The still-stunned Rabbit asked in confusion. I could see the amazement as Klunk remained perfectly situated on his shoulders even as he got off the bed and came to my side.
“The Christmas decorations – I started them before going off to find help for sensei, but they need two people to work on and I was never able to finish them.”
“Of course, Michel.”
“Yo! Guys! We’re here for dinner!” Casey’s voice rang out in the lair as he and April showed up just around nine o’clock or so. The jet-haired human was sporting a thin-looking jacket next to our first human friend, his wife who was reasonably bundled up in personal defense from the freezing wind that could be heard roaring outside our ‘front door’ as it closed behind them. Under each arm he carried what seemed to be enough ingredients to feed each of us twice over. Before coming over to where Kage and I were, April made sure the door was shut tight.
“Casey, we need to help make the dinner first,” auburn-haired April told him, slugging him in the shoulder as she began to make a b-line for the kitchen. “Come on, I’m sure there’s a drink for you to nurse in there while you talk to Raph.”
“New duds for Christmas, Usagi?” Casey remarked, watching as Kage came back down the second ladder after helping me properly hang the garlands. With his help it’d taken next to no time, although Klunk had spent those fleeting moments staring at the various garland tails and no doubt wondering just how high she’d have to jump in order to grab one.
Kage blinked, slipped, and then blushed when I caught him and helped his feet find the floor properly again. “I am not Usagi,” he told our friend quickly as Klunk came back over to him from the ornament box she’d been perched on while we played with the garlands.
“Okay … so you guys are what … collecting rabbits now?” Casey asked, looking at me now.
I probably would have snickered, but with Kage right there it felt more than inappropriate; he wasn’t an action figure, after all, and I had no intention of owning him in any way. “Kage’s a new friend, Casey, and he’s been helping me with the decorations.”
“I suppose it’s a good thing he seems to be a priest,” April remarked dryly, coming over to shake his hand. “Casey may need one if he manages to insult Raph one more time tonight in front of Joy.” She gave the dark-haired vigilante a ‘look’ and then turned back to Kage, her red hair bouncing behind her head as she moved. “Hello Kage, I’m April. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Thank you, April,” he responded, all but Velcro-ing himself to my side. After the incident with Raphael earlier I couldn’t really blame him. “It is nice to meet one of Michel’s friends.”
Again, since it had to do with Kage, I bit my tongue when April had mentioned my brother. As it was, she seemed a bit taken aback by the fact that Kage referred to me as ‘Michel’ and not as ‘Mikey’ … the way nearly everyone else who knew me did. For once in my life the longer name seemed preferable, at least when coming from Kage, and I prayed that it showed on my face. “Do you need any help with dinner, April?” I asked, getting her focus back onto me. I don’t mind getting attention, and Kage seemed to be mentally screaming that he hated it. Right now, anyway. Well, as long as he didn’t mind me giving him attention …
“No – if I remember correctly Leo phoned and said that dinner was entirely up to me and Casey tonight –”
“I’ll say a quick prayer for you then,” I told her, patting her on the hand. Casey, who’d obviously overheard my comment, tried ignoring it even as I saw him fume soundlessly about it.
“I could certainly use all the happy thoughts you can send my way,” April replied, noticing movement behind my back. “Raph! Don! Merry Christmas!”
“Merry Christmas, April,” Don replied, giving her a quick hug as Raphael waited behind him.
After he’d also given her a hug, Raph turned to Casey and started helping with the grocery bags. “You and your Wide Loads,” he muttered aloud to his best friend as they headed past us. Casey chuckled with embarrassment and then Raph leaned closer and said something I couldn’t hear. Something inside told me it had to do with Kage … and me. Beside me Kage shivered as he spoke.
“Hey Don,” I asked, touching him on the shoulder. “Were you able to fix up a new Touch for me?” I asked, smirking slightly.
Don-san sighed. “Here you go, Mikey,” he said quietly, handing me a refurbished iPod Touch he’d refitted with a slice off one of those nifty crystal batteries we’d brought back from the Underground city. “I still don’t understand how you could lose the first one, though.”
“It was in my pack when the bat ninja attacked me,” I told him, shoulders drooping. “You should see it, Donnie – my poor backpack’s got this slice across it like I’ve been in horror movie! I’m surprised I didn’t lose more than my Pod and some bandages.” I held onto the iPod, intending to put it back into my room as soon as possible.
“Well, maybe I’ll send you and Leo out on a supply run to make up for this extra work,” he said with a sigh. “I mean, these things don’t grow on trees.”
“I understand, Donnie,” I told him firmly, grabbing Kage’s hand and heading back into my room. He waited patiently while I put away the new iPod on a shelf and came back to the doorway. “Hey, so we’ve got the garlands up … now we get to do the tree.”
“The tree?” Kage asked, cocking his head and blinking at me with those violet eyes of his.
“The Christmas tree,” I told him happily, standing by the door and waiting for him to join me. “I wasn’t able to decorate it on my own before I left for you and Usagi’s world, so now you get to help me … if you want to.” It wasn’t fair to assume he’d help – especially with how Raph had treated him earlier. “Unless you’d like to stay in here and take a nap or something,” I blurted out as an afterthought.
Those amethyst eyes widened in terror. “No, I do not mind,” Kage replied, coming to rest next to me. “I … after earlier … I feel better being near you,” he said quietly.
“Of course you do,” I told him with a smirk, earning a puzzled look, and I beamed at him then. “I’m the fun one!”
I’d like to say that decorating the tree was nice and uneventful, but that’d be a lie. For one thing the garland was far too enticing to Klunk, who ran around between Kage and I as we tried flipping it back and forth to wrap it around the Pine tree.
“Is she always like this, Michel?” Kage asked, rescuing the golden, fluffy cord from my cat for what was probably the twelfth time in a row.
“It’s fluffy, she can swat at it, and we’re making it move around for her,” I remarked, chuckling as Klunk fell forward trying to jump at the garland as Kage handed it to me. “This is practically heaven to Klunk.” We both laughed a little as an orange blur swept around our legs then, trying to follow the garland around the base of the tree as we finished it off.
“Hey, where’s my no-account once-neighbor, Mikey?” came a voice from the doorway.
Kage and I turned to look at the doorway, and a smile lit up my face. “Angel! Donnie’ll be happy to see you,” I told her, wandering over to give her a hug. Her deep purple hair gained light-purple streaks months ago and, though I hadn’t been told anything, I was guessing it had something to do with that tech-genius brother of mine. It had to, because those streaks seem to be the very same shade as his mask. Her dress for the evening is a little like a black and purple version of a pirate-girl’s outfit – a black corset-type top with a long skirt that was short in front and floor-length in the back. The skirt, and the matching sleeves, alternated between shades of purple and slashes of black.
Don was going to have a heart attack.
“I’ll be happy to see him, too,” Angel told me, suddenly a bit melancholy as she kept looking around the lair, “but first I gotta tell that thick-sculled friend of ours to call my grandma and wish her a Merry Christmas; promised her I’d do it.”
“Then just steer yourself to the kitchen,” I told her, pointing for a second. “He’s ‘helping’ April make dinner.”
“Thanks Mikey,” she said, and then Kage must have finally ended up getting her attention. “Who’s this?”
Kage fidgeted, his ears drooping forward like an unhappy flower. “This is Kage,” I told her quickly. “He’s another Rabbit from Usagi’s world, and ended up helping Master Splinter get better so we could actually have a Merry Christmas,” I explained, trying to emphasize the good he’d done before she heard anything from the others. “Kage, this is our friend Angel – she’s a friend of Casey’s.”
“Nice to meet ’cha, Kage,” Angel said, holding a hand out just long enough to give his hand a firm shake before jogging off toward the kitchen door. “Hey, Head Case! You forgot to –”
“I … I take it that many people are coming for this dinner,” Kage breathed, looking over at me once we were alone again. Well, alone with Klunk at any rate.
“There’ll be a couple more, I think,” I told him, and he seemed to collapse inwardly. “But don’t worry your furry little head about it, ‘cause one of ‘em is Joy and she’ll keep Raph more than occupied,” I blurted out, blocking his line of sight to our front door for a bit. “I mean it – they’ll probably stay in the dojo half the time, like last year, and barely even come out to eat. So you don’t have to worry about Raph going after you again.”
“I just … this is all so different from what I am used to,” he uttered, looking around at the garlands lining the walls, and the tree behind us. He watched in silence as Angel exited the kitchen, her black and purple dress making tiny rustling noises as she headed toward Donnie’s lab.
“Don’t worry about it, then,” I told him firmly, steering us back over to the tree where three boxes still sat near the trunk. “You’ll fit in soon enough.” I opened the top box and handed him a large frosted blue ball ornament.
“They don’t seem to want me to fit in,” he remarked, watching until I’d hung up a golden-colored ornament before hanging up his.
I handed him a green ornament, and then turned back to the box to grab another pair of them out. “Angel didn’t say that when she met you.”
“Angel doesn’t even know me,” he said firmly, looking around the tree for a spot to hang the next ball ornament.
“Not yet,” I said, just as firmly in tone. “Now, after these the next box has smaller ornaments of a whole bunch of shapes, so just remember to spread them all out over the tree.”
“Alright,” he breathed, noticing that Klunk had gravitated toward him once more.
The rest of the tree went together without a hitch, thankfully, and when Joy arrived she simply grabbed Raph by the hand and all but dragged him into the dojo. “I’ve had a lousy week,” I heard her blurt out on the way, “so I really need to spar.”
I wish I knew if Raph was surprised by her behavior or not, but I didn’t get to see his face before they disappeared. Later on, I was surprised all over again when the two of them didn’t look like a truck had run over them while they ate dinner with us.
In deference to Master Splinter, who still seemed a bit groggy from the … curse, or whatever it was that he’d suffered, we all went to bed early. Usagi followed Leo to his room; Raph took Joy to his; but I noticed how Don led Angel to his own room, opening the door for her, and then closing the door behind his back before going back to his lab. Alone.
Kage I took back to my room, as I’d noted earlier. “Here, you get to take the bed for the night,” I told him quickly, pulling the covers back for him and noticing how Klunk hopped down from her shelf and padded over to us on silent paws.
“I could not,” he replied, hands flying up between us with the palms my way. “It is your bed, and far too nice for one such as me.”
The frightened look on his face made me wonder if he was thinking of what my brothers might say about my offer, but the thought just made me miserable. Heart pinching, I grabbed Kage and pulled him into my arms. “You’re my guest,” I told him firmly, “the best thing you can do is to graciously accept what I give you, and enjoy it as much as you possibly can while you’ve got it.” I leaned my head a bit, placing my lips next to his right ear. “You can do that for me, right?”
“Michel, I … yes, I can.”
I watched as he slid himself in under the covers, recognizing the signs of relaxation in the Rabbit’s tired muscles as he settled on the mattress. And then Klunk hopped up, burrowing under Kage’s chin and purring happily. Maybe she was worried Raph would come in after the Rabbit again? Grabbing a blanket from nearby and settling myself down on the floor, I sighed and fell into a restless slumber.
Klunk was the lucky one, I swear.
In the morning the others awoke to find a bunch of presents under the tree, thanks to your Sneakiness right here. With Raph double-distracted, though, I decided it was high time I get Kage and leave.
“Leo, would you do the Gate inscription for me?” I asked quietly, trying not to intrude on everyone else’s good time. He nodded, taking the chalk I handed him and heading over to the section of wall close by.
“Don’t be gone long,” he uttered, giving the chalk back, “the others will notice.”
“I understand,” I told him quietly, finding it hard to breathe as I spilled a cup of water at the base of the chalk lines, and then turned to grab my backpack. “I’ll be right back.”
Leo turned to look at Kage, seemingly willing the Rabbit to lock eyes with him. “Goodbye, Kage, I hope you enjoyed your first Christmas here, and that nothing bad has happened to the villagers while you were away.” And then he bowed.
“I … how did you know about the villagers?” Kage’s face scrunched up in confusion. “I told you nothing about them.”
“You said, in your letter, that you wanted to become a priest,” my brother remarked, briefly checking to make sure the others weren’t looking our way. “As you are wearing the outfit, I assume you have reached that goal.”
“Oh! Thank you, Leo-kun,” the Rabbit uttered, eyes dropping back to the floor. “I suppose the villagers will be happy to see me, yes.”
“I suspect they will be, if you have made yourself useful to them.”
He nodded once more. “I have done my best,” Kage said softly, quietly enough that both of us had to strain to hear him. “They would be better served by a true priest, but I know enough of the healing arts that their injuries are better cared for than they once were … and for the first time in my life I have my own hut!”
The look on Kage’s face as he spoke struck me; I knew by now that there was history between Leo and Kage, but whatever Kage used to do it was clear as crystal that he was much happier living within that tiny little village I’d met him in. And the genuine smile lighting his face seemed to satisfy something in my elder brother.
“Well, have no fear, Kage,” Leo uttered quickly, “Mikey will get you back to your village safely.”
“I know,” the Rabbit replied, just as quickly, “I trust him.”
Leo nodded, looked over his shoulder once to check on the others, and then quietly began the chant. I mouthed along, and realized with a happy shock that I had managed to memorize the whole thing. The Gate appeared, and now Leo locked eyes with me. “Do you know the lines for coming home?”
I thought hard for a second – about the last time I’d seen Leo start the chalk lines, yes – but also about when I’d watched Usagi do it in the cave to bring us home. There was a difference and, again, the realization that I had noticed and memorized that difference struck me. “Yes,” I told him happily, “yeah, I remember.”
Leo smirked. “On your way, little brother,” he told me. “Take our new friend home, and return swiftly.” I nodded, and wondered if the light from the Gate showed him how miserable I felt inside. Putting an arm around Kage, I walked us into the portal as quickly as I could.
All over again I was disoriented by the change in day between our Earths, enveloped by the darkness just as much as I had been the first time I’d come here. We seemed to be only about an hour’s distance from the village, coming out of the Gate near the rice paddies where I’d seen the cute little lizard creatures. None of them seemed to be out at the moment, though.
“You’re probably happy to be back here,” I mused aloud, heart twanging when the words fell from my lips.
“I am,” he responded, taking in a deep breath of air. “I am much more comfortable here, among the rocks and mountains I am familiar with.”
I nodded and fell silent, listening to the crunch of the snow beneath our feet on the way back to the village. Well, when I wasn’t busy trying to sneak glances over at Kage, and noticing how the moonlight bathed his fur in a silver glow.
When we were within sight of the village, Kage turned his head my way. “Thank you, Michel,” he breathed, “for bringing me back, and for coming to my defense earlier … though you did not need to.”
I shook my head violently. “No way, you were just fine and it was Raph who was out of line,” I blurted, grabbing him by the shoulders. In the dark his eyes almost seemed to be big black pools. “No matter what you’ve done before, they should’ve balanced that out with what you’d just done for our father.”
“But the past is still there, Michel,” Kage said, “and it always will be.” His eyes dropped down to look at where my hands still gripped him, hard. “Let us continue on to the village, shall we?”
I dropped my hands as if they’d been burned. “You’re right, we should get moving.” I’d promised Leo I’d be back soon, after all. “Yeah, let’s get moving …”
The rest of the way into the village proper was quiet, except for the snow crunching, and we got to Kage’s hut without another outburst. Reaching the doorway, Kage looked back at me. “Thank you, again, for bringing me home.”
“You’re welcome,” I replied, leaning against the wall of his hut. When Kage moved to go inside, I piped up again. “Can I come in for a bit? I’ve got presents to leave with you.”
“Presents?” He asked, blinking at me.
“Yeah, we left while the others were exchanging Christmas gifts and I didn’t want you to miss out on that.”
“Well … alright, come in then,” he responded, entering the hut before me.
Closing the door behind me, the environment changed from bathed in blue to gleaming in orange as Kage lit a candle. Immediately I dropped to my knees and began undoing the tightly wound futon pad I’d strapped to the top of my backpack. “This one I couldn’t wrap,” I told him as I handed it over, “but I thought you could use some extra padding at night.”
Kage took the futon pad, rolling it out to look at it in the candlelight, and then proceeded to place it atop the straw he’d been using as bedding. He ran a furry, clawed hand along the side of it slowly before looking back at me. “Thank you.”
I smirked. “It’s nothing,” I told him, poking my hand into the front pocket on my backpack. “Now this – also not wrapped ‘cause I didn’t have time to do that – is your other gift,” I told him, standing up and going to his side as he pressed down a hand on the futon absentmindedly.
Kage looked up at me, taking the rectangular object from me silently. For a second all he did was sit there and stare at it, and then he looked up at me. “I … I believe Miyamoto-san has one of these,” he said softly.
“Yeah, Leo gave it to them so that they could talk to each other,” I replied quickly, grabbing my own new Touch out of the backpack now, and returning to his side. “Now you’ve got your own so that if you run into any trouble you can call for help.” I showed him how to turn the device on, and pointed out the Skype cloud. “I left me and Leo’s screen names on that one, so you can call either one of us.”
He looked down at the glowing screen, and read the names listed there aloud. “BattleChamp_3?”
“That’s mine,” I piped up, smirking. “I’d offered it up to Don as a bit of a joke, really, ‘cause I know it’s been years since I was the champ, but he took me seriously enough to actually use it.” And truly, by now I could be rather humble about it because we’d all been in two more competitions and I’d been beaten halfway through both times. It didn’t mean I wouldn’t do my best next time, though!
He nodded, and looked back at the screen. “AoKame_3.”
“That’s Leo’s screen name,” I acknowledged, nodding. “I think Don was happy I picked something non-mask color related because spelling out the color orange in hiragana probably would have irritated him.”
He nodded absentmindedly. “So I could call Leo-kun if I need to ask him something?”
“Yeah, I did say that,” I responded, holding my iPod Touch in my lap. Then I sighed, looking at the candle for a moment. “And feel free to do it for more than just an emergency – if you’ve got a quick question, or just want to say ‘hi’ to me or Leo, then that’s okay too.”
“Will he not wonder how I ended up with one of these?” The Rabbit asked, running his finger over the touch screen.
“Let me deal with that,” I told him firmly. “If he asks about it, you just tell him to come to me.” Standing up, I went to my backpack in only two long strides. “I … I guess I’ll talk to you later, then.”
“Thank you,” Kage repeated once more, “for everything, Michel.”
I nodded, exiting the hut and heading back toward the road in the moonlight and shadow. There was a section of mountainside I could use to summon the Gate with, and I’d be back to the lair in less than ten minutes. Grabbing chalk and a water bottle out of my bag, I snickered to myself. Leo might not be that happy with me when he finds that I’ve given Kage the ability to call him just like Usagi can, but I don’t want the Rabbit to have any regrets when he’s around me. If he wants to keep trying for Leo, I’ll let him. I know what I want, and I can be patient.
I can be incredibly patient when I really put my mind to it, you know. Every single video game I play eventually ends up with a score of 100% after all.