Chapter Text
Yugo Kuga was an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a ghost (??????). Kronin wasn’t entirely sure that he wasn’t hallucinating the entire experience.
Evidence for that argument seemed to be disproven as soon as it popped up, though. The spontaneous theme music popping up around the man could be heard by all. Hyuse had gotten into a long argument with the ghost about the historical veracity of some Aftokratorian play. The television programmes depicting scenes with dogs and men in black suits and giants were all confirmed by Rindo to be real. Osamu was solidly clocked in the head with a mug when he said that maybe they shouldn’t be messing around with life and death.
All in all, Kronin was having a weird week.
But, considering that Kido had decided to drop by for dinner (taking the first step in years to reconcile with his kids), he was probably having a weirder one.
Kido’s face looked like a pancake full of emotion. “YUGO?”
“KIDO!!!!!” Bellowed the ghost, forgetting for a minute that he was not, in fact, a solid mass, and passing right through Kido as he attempted to wrap his erstwhile boyfriend into a literal bear hug.
Kido started crying. The other people in the living room started to slowly back out.
The hallway crowd, as it was, was just the Tamakoma-2 captain (Miku-something?) and his weird nephew. Kronin figured that as the older officer here, he should do what all his superiors did to set the new recruits at ease. Make small talk.
“So. Ghosts are a thing now.” Nailing the small talk, that was Kronin. Military training who? He was a talk show radio host now.
“Weeeeell, I’m not so sure about that, actually.” Miku-something said.
The nephew raised an eyebrow. “How is that-“ he pointed a finger at Yughost, who was now telling stories about Kuga The Sequel’s childhood while showing photos of them to Kido who was showing off pictures of Jin and Kirie and sobbing into a couch pillow- “not haunting us?”
“I’m not saying he’s not, I’m saying he might not be Kuga’s father.” replied the other child.
“Ok, walk me through this.” Kronin interjected. The kid was starting to remind him uncomfortably of what the intel department looked like when they knew something that you didn’t and then you ended up covered in slime and glowing in a sewer on some godforsaken planet while they laughed and totaled up how much money they got off each other betting on you.
“Well, okay, what Konami and Kuga and Jin did in the woods was basically just sort of spiritually yelling ‘YUGO KUGA, WHERE ARE YOU’ and letting whatever come and manifest. And that probably worked fine, because theoretically speaking, whatever he did to make Kuga’s trigger would keep his ghost pretty closely tied to Kuga, in a metaphysical way. Think of it like having a leash on his arm, and that ritual pulled it hard enough to manifest him onto this -“ he gestured around at the walls- “- plane of existence. Which would be great if it actually worked! And it most likely did.” Here he gave a Look to Kido and Yugo, who were by now trying to work out how to get around Yugo being an incorporeal cloud of fog. “But there’s a chance- a very small, infinitesimally tiny chance, mind you- that it didn’t, and that the ghost in there something else, and it’s drawing on the memories of everyone who knew him to make a convincing facsimile of him.” He finished, looking for all the world like someone who’d just had to tell you that your dog died.
Kronin had so many questions.
He looked into the other room.
That sight wasn’t going away anytime soon.
But when he turned to ask Miku-something his many, many questions-
-he and Kronin’s nephew were gone.