Chapter Text
Sachika doesn’t sleep. She wakes screaming, and then again, and a nurse comes in asking her to be quiet and if she needs help sleeping. Sachika says no.
She doesn’t go back to sleep, curls in on herself.
That hurts too, but it helps.
She stays that way until her boys come in the morning, and then she hugs them both tightly.
“I want to go home,” she says.
“I know,” Shouma says.
“The doctor says you can, soon,” Hanto adds. Sachika feels her eyes well up with tears, but she refuses to let them fall.
“Good,” she says. It feels like it’s been forever, but it’s been less than 24 hours. “I couldn’t sleep.”
She isn’t the one who has nightmares. She’s the one who gets these two a snack, when they do.
“Well, then we’ll go right to bed,” Shouma says.
Sachika smiles, manages to let them both go.
She still doesn’t rest until they get home.
She doesn’t like being alone, and she doesn’t like needing help, but she did to get dressed in the change they brought to the hospital, and again to take them off and curl up in bed. She’s probably going to close shop for a day or two.
But it’s over now.
Even if the battle continues.
She just wishes…
Hanto lays with her, a hand on her hip, where thankfully no bruises are.
Shouma is in the next room over, getting her a cup of tea.
“Hey,” Sachika says. “Hanti… do you think that scientist of yours is willing to make another gun like yours?”
“...He is,” Hanto says. “Why?”
“Because I want one,” she says. “I want to fight with you both.”
“...No, you don’t,” Hanto says. “He’s a monster, and I don’t want him to touch you.”
“Well, I’m already in the hospital,” Sachika says. “Already being tortured by association. Whatever it is that means you can transform like Umasho–”
“I won’t let him torture you!” Hanto exclaims, sitting up suddenly. Sachika follows.
“It’s not up to you,” she says. He looks so scared, and she wants to comfort him, but… “I don’t want to be a token used against you. I know what you keep in your pocket.”
Hanto looks away, shaking. His own father’s corpse probably on his mind. Sachika takes his hand.
“I’m safer if I can fight,” she says. “And can’t be shrunken down like that, so help me… please?”
Hanto sighs.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good,” Sachika says.
Shouma peak in.
“Everything okay in here?” He asks. Sachika grins, cuddling against Hanto.
“Just peachy, now,” she says. “I’m gonna join you though. As Kamen Rider.”
“Oh,” Shouma says. “Good! I’d feel safer with you by my side.”
“Not good,” Hanto says. “That man will torture her.”
“...But that’s her choice,” Shouma says. “And it’ll help us all in the end. I don’t want Sachika to be helpless.”
“See?” Sachika asks. “He gets it!”
Hanto sighs.
Whatever’s next, she’ll handle it alongside them.