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“Yuu-kun...? Mika…?”
“The hell? You two; you’re the-”
“The crimson and navy ranger.”
There are a few unspoken codes among the four rangers, they all know. Codes they broke. Smashed to bits.
Class and part-time jobs during the day; world-threatening power struggles at night. That’s how it is, Kimizuki will slowly conclude.
Any semblance of peace? That’s dead and gone, Yoichi will learn.
Sacrifice. Fight, fall, and die. That’s inevitable, Mitsuba will eventually understand.
And, finally, rangers have no friends. Friends are weaknesses. They have themselves, their team, and no one else. That’s what it means to be a ranger, Shinoa reminds her team.
Every, single, day.
But last week…
Last week there was a sleepover.
The week before that, a trip to the beach.
Before that, window-shopping at the mall. Movie marathon, horror only. Karaoke. Day trip to Nara. The arcade.
And before that, and before that, and-
And for the past several months, the team had invited high school transfers Hyakuya Yuuichirou and Hyakuya Mikaela into their small, tight-knit circle. They had meetups. They had friends.
They broke the ranger code.
So, naturally, of course, the Universe, with all her glory, had to be an absolute class-A bitch.
Bite them back in the ass to make everything right and normal again. Cosmic Balance and all that.
Their friends, the two brothers they adopted as their civilian comrades. Brief reprieves from life-or-death battles. Wearing the blood-red and bitter blue uniforms of the enigmatic enemies that had terrorized the team for months now.
Kimizuki adjusts his glasses. A force of habit when he scrambles for a sense of control. Shinoa’s been with her team long enough to pick up all their little quirks.
“We were betrayed.”
Ah, there it is. Her trusty Pink telling it like it is. Obviously. Clearly. Damnably.
This isn't real, there's more to this story, they aren't traitors, is probably something a desperate leader would reason in their head at this moment. The idealistic kind of protagonist in one of Yuu or Mitsu’s favored shounen anime; in either Mika or Yoichi’s YA novels. So cheesy. So unrealistic.
Shinoa fell hard for those types. How could she not? They represent everything she isn't. How utterly romantic to be swept up in the strong arms of a gallant knight who fights just wars! Fictional perfection!
Fictional. Fictional. The heroes and heroines she admires are only that. Brutal reality is never so kind. War is never so black and white.
Just when they think they can have normal days with normal friends, it turns out those days were all a lie and their friends were the enemy this entire time, because rangers can’t have nice things.
Fuck Cosmic Balance, is what Shinoa wants to say to that, but, “Yes, it would seem so,” is all she mutters in her agreement with Kimizuki's assessment.
Fierce and distant; predatorial and resigned. The look in the brothers’ eyes is like nothing she's ever seen.
“Nothin’ personal, boss.” Yuu (the friend, comrade, second-in-command always cracking jokes and butting heads with Kimizuki but still so kind and warm like the sun and a friend) breaks from his brother’s side and steps forward, closing only a fraction's worth of the distance they'd made with the fallen team. An invisible chasm preventing Yuuichirou from moving any closer.
And… Yes. That's a smile.
That Yuuichirou can still summon an easy grin even after dislocating Mitsu’s shoulder, after crippling Yoichi’s psyche, after sending sparks of thunder hurtling towards Kimizuki’s ribcage, and still address Shinoa as if this isn't personal-
“Akane-chan is on the line...” Mika (the friend, comrade, rough around the edges but still so self-sacrificing and gentle and caring for the weak, friend) has a look in his eye... Shinoa's seen that look only once before.
On a school night. When they'd all gathered in the brothers’ tiny apartment for a late-night study session turned sleepover. The next day they’d wake up to school, and they may once again fight the rogue rangers that had targeted them and their home for several weeks now; but at that moment, they were just kids. Kids laughing at Yuu's dumb jokes, kids struggling over math problem 2b), kids sharing stories of the last time they'd had sleepovers with now-abandoned friends...
Shinoa saw it then. The only one to catch that look. Gentle hand on Mika's shoulder, she'd asked what was wrong when everyone else had fallen asleep on their open textbooks, and Mika had only smiled a smile that didn't reach his eyes before wishing Hiiragi a good night.
Everything is so much clearer in hindsight.
“Our family is on the line.” Twinged with a shade of desperation. Pleas and apologies and agony, all in one Mikaela mutter.
“Family?” From behind her, Shinoa hears a snarl. Mitsu. Her Yellow spitfire still strong after a brutal beating. Valiantly defiant to the death. That's her girl. “We’re your friends. We’re your family.”
Ah, that sounds so strange. And yet so right. Welcome. Feels a little warm, too. (After all, Shinoa’s blood family never had trips to the arcade.)
Yuuichirou must have felt differently.
“No,” thunder booms overhead, forming into a lightning crackle in the palm of Yuu’s hand, “you’re in the way.”
So the navy-crimson dance will continue: Another fight, another loss with one side retreating to lick their wounds. Except these aren’t just faceless enemies behind a mask; and again, the agonizing question: How could she, red ranger, leader of them all, have been so blind?
“Don’t do this." That... that can be no other than Yoichi. The team’s heart. Her Green. All broken and quiet.
Among all of them, Yoichi’s relationship with the brothers had always been the most satisfying to see flourish, blossom. Slowly and delicately, like a flower blooming up unsurely before the sunshine encourages it to unfurl completely.
Who else but Yoichi could get Mikaela to confess that, like Saotome, he and Yuu have a sister, too: Akane. Who else but Yoichi could get Yuuichirou to admit he’s lucky to get 3 hours of sleep each night between the odd jobs he’s taken up. To ensure Mikaela will never again go hungry so Yuu can sleep with a full belly. To ensure the brothers have a roof over their heads and warm blankets at night, a home to go home to.
(It's no secret Yuu fondly sees Yoichi as a close companion, reminding him of Mika when they were kids. Shinoa knows this because, whenever the team’s heart unwittingly wandered into the picture, Yuuichirou practically yelled his delight to everyone and dragged Yoichi into a one-armed hug with a boyish grin. Mika declared to never see the resemblance; no one believed Mika.)
Green, he has that special kind of superpower. No one else could massage the soul like Saotome Yoichi.
“Please. We trusted you, Yuu-kun.”
And no one else could afflict the soul like Saotome Yoichi.
Both brothers react to Green's plea. Yuuichirou’s shudder has Shinoa fluttering with anxiety. A full body seize-up, face twitching, screwing up as if in pain. Then, he sobers up with a lip-biting smile that looks like the beginnings of a sob.
Shinoa imagines little Mikaela, the tender age of ten. Skin and bones. Small boy declaring Yuuichirou’s betrayal with glassy eyes-
Mikaela must imagine it, too.
Something dangerous stirs in the older brother, who cuts between Yoichi's line of sight to Yuu as if to physically shield.
Predictable reaction. He's protective of Yuu; Kimizuki and everyone else learned of this fact after a particular argument, where he implied Yuu and Mika’s lack of blood relations mean they will never understand how it must feel to lose a real sibling, as Kimizuki has.
This all concluded with his ass on asphalt and Mika down on him, and Kimizuki never implied that sort of thing ever again.
“We have no choice!”
Really? Is that what you think, my dear Mika? It's the last thought, the last words crooned from Shinoa, before the navy-crimson dance continues. Violent with thunder and lightning and the red, yellow, green, and pink rangers fighting for their lives.
And honestly? Fuck the Cosmic Balance.