Chapter Text
Yua didn’t doubt Lightning Hornet’s wing power. While Gai had designed the Progrise Key to be flawless, improvements could always be made, always be possible to people and technology. That was their similarity. And Yua longed for change. She tinkered until she, the technical advisor with a faulty Rider system, could match Falcon in flight. Yua could trust her inventions.
What she doubted was using a Progrise Key for something as, should she say, silly as flying for the joy of it. The suits were weapons of peace. Not tools - it would take time before the induced headaches would fade away. They were meant to inspire and weave hope into hardened hearts like hers and Fuwa’s. See the future was a road marked by their choices. At least, Yua needed that reminder. The suits weren’t built for standing on top of apartment buildings and getting ready to fly in a light shower of rain just because.
Then again, everyone had different definitions as to what sound logic entailed.
“Come on, Valkyrie!” Jin walked along the edge, his arms stretched out. “You’ve never flown for anything outside a battle, haven’t you?”
“No,” Yua conceded. “And I had no intention to.” But you dragged me away from my office.
Once he reached a corner, Jin pivoted on his heels and walked back down the sliver between ground and building. Combined with the Burning Falcon suit - Yua’s mouth started to twitch. Instead of giving in to the urge, she inched closer to the edge and looked down, down...
“So why here?”
“Well” - Jin came to a stop just centimetres away from her - “I wanted to start with Hiden Intelligence. But Zero One said it was far too high - ”
“It’s a hundred storey building, Jin.”
“ - so I thought it’d be better to start with something smaller.”
Yua blinked. “So you chose my house.”
A droplet of water slid down Jin’s mask as he nodded.
“A forty storey apartment building.”
She didn’t need to see his face to know he was grinning. It was all in the tilt of his head. “See? Easy!”
One of these days, Jin’s way of navigating through life - with concepts and a vision wider than the span of his wings - was going to kill her. Probably before Yua could cultivate any fear of heights.
But Yua knew Fuwa for three years, Aruto over one year, Gai for longer than anyone else combined. Individuals with ambitions she couldn’t fathom. Yua only saw what existed in front of her and began her own transformation not so long ago. Jin was squeezed in the middle yet remained far ahead, imparting smiles to Humagears. He had a dream.
Maybe a part of her was drawn to that.
Yua peered down again. Some umbrellas were moving in yellow and blue dots. “I guess it is. But I’ve never activated the wing system from this height. Especially while falling.”
Jin placed a hand against her back. “Not even for test runs?”
She folded her arms, hands poised right on the crook of her elbows. “Amatsu wanted fast results.”
“He’s not here.”
“Dead, alive, it doesn’t matter,” she replied. “I’d do a flight test from the ground. Not from a building.”
“But you’ve activated the wing system after a jump.”
“Falling doesn’t involve going up, Jin.”
“But jumping always ends in falling.” She could hear him suck in a breath – and he pushed her.
“What – ” Yua tipped forward. “Jin!”
If not for the suit, ice cold gales would be blasting her face and through her clothes. Any other person would flail their arms and curse Jin who was falling next to her, with his own brand of recklessness and the gall to laugh.
But not Yua.
Whether it was the suit’s coding or her own instincts, Yua didn’t know. But a series of graphs and numbers flashed across the screen and sky blue lights materialized into gossamer-like wings in her peripheral vision. She then focused on maintaining a semblance of balance until she was flying – standing – above the city; her wings resembling four sets of buzzing lines.
Yua lowered her arms and swallowed. The skyscrapers were pencils pointing upwards and the roads were paths on a map. But she always knew the world could be tempered into any shape, as long as desire existed. What affected her was the reminder she was only a speck in this wide world. In the far east she could see Daybreak, the sunlight refracting in blue beams off its slim laser barriers. It looked like the lost, sunken city was sunken by fire. Hellfire. Or candlelight, to guide the Humagears and humans working to recover Korenosuke’s dream.
She sighed.
Jin drew himself next to her, his own wings beating in languid rhythm. “So - what do you think?” Jin asked, voice breathless from the plunge.
Her heart beat at the base of her throat. “It’d be better if you didn’t push me.”
“Sorry.” At least he sounded sheepish. “I’ll ask next time.”
“Let’s see if you remember.”
He slipped into a laugh and, as if to mirror his joy, swooped down. Yua shook her head yet followed – at a distance to avoid the dark plates of Jin’s wings.
Grey blocks for building and green for what little nature remained in the city passed under them. Sights she took for granted and weren’t worth noting. But Yua kept snapping her head around when something twitched or shivered down below. A fluttering flag. A blimp broadcasting news on its holographic display. People milling in intersections. Rain pattering her helmet. Her body rocking side to side as she flew.
Perhaps it was instinct – entrenched by years of working under Gai’s thumb, working until her bones felt disfigured even as she stretched – that left her – skittish. Perhaps she knew for years turning against Gai wouldn’t erase the dust from her eyes and leave her lighter, cleaner. It was easier to rip apart wires and metal and rebuild everything. That set technology apart from humans. And she ceased to believe in dreams, in miracles, long ago.
But watching Jin dance with the wind, soaring and twisting, looping around spires while she stuck to one direction had her think. Wonder. What was it like to be weightless, despite everything the world tried to hurl at you?
Jin whooped as he swerved around a building and Yua couldn’t help the smile ghosting her lips. Clearly she could never understand.
*
They were still kilometres away when Hiden Intelligence loomed over them; twin towers twisting into one, pearl white structure at the top. As far as Yua knew it was an odd design choice. Then again, it symbolised unity better than the previous design, with its slim bridge between two parallel towers. Travelling in the same direction, but never touching.
Then Jin tapped her shoulder. She didn’t need to look to know where the destination was.
Yua’s wings beat faster, buzzed louder, and it propelled her body forward at greater heights. Hiden Intelligence came closer and closer with each second. And when her systems issued a warning – five metres away from direct impact – she craned her neck in motion with arching herself upwards. Jin did the same, except he circled the building as he ascended. She lightly scoffed, the sound neutralized by the ringing in her ears. Show off.
As she approached the top, Yua proceeded to spin in a corkscrew, letting her body slow to a stop on its own. At the end her wings snapped open again in a flash of blue light, as if refreshing themselves. The city lying down below was even smaller than before. Yua exhaled, low and deep. Her hands shook. Her heart pumped blood faster down her arms, through her legs. The air was crisp in her throat. Like she had been running until her body would burst, not flying. She knew. Yua had a habit of running all her life.
Jin came to a stop next to her, wings throwing up gusts of air. Yua swallowed in an attempt to clear her numbed ears. Turned her head –
And she could see someone pressing themselves up to the window at the upmost floor. Their mouth opened and closed in words she couldn’t hear. Likely yelling what and Yaiba-san at the top of their voice. A red hoodie peeked out from under their suit jacket.
It must be Aruto.
Yua pressed her lips together.
She glanced down again. A small crowd was gathering and – with her systems zooming in – she saw they were pointing fingers at them and taking photos with their phones. Yua shifted her eyes away.
Even if it was expected of two Kamen Riders flying in broad daylight, thank goodness the suits had helmets. At least it’d hide the flush crawling up her cheeks from the – adrenaline. Yua could almost hear Fuwa saying when I said you should leap towards your dream, I didn’t mean literally doing it.
Actually, she could deal with the last part.
“Want to visit Zero One?”
Izu was pulling Aruto by the arm. “He could be busy.”
“He’s never too busy for a friend.”
“I know. But I have work to do.”
Jin hummed, head bobbing in time with each sweep of his wings. “I’ll take you back then.”
“…what?”
He laughed. “You should see the look on your face.”
“I have a mask on.”
Rather than responding, Jin lifted his hand to wave at someone. Yua’s brow furrowed. She looked back at the window. On the left side of the room, Aruto was scratching his head and surrounded by piles of folders on his desk. On the right side there was Izu; holding up a green folder and waving at them, her fingers cupped together, red lips curved in her usual smile.
Yua hesitated before nodding once.
“I thought you needed a break. I mean, even Izu has Zero One helping her. Naki’s at Daybreak with Vulcan. Not that there’s anything wrong with working alone,” Jin added hastily, just as Aruto upset all the folders on his desk. “I just think it’s easier if you have someone to rely on.”
“There’s plenty of employees that stayed with ZAIA. A.I.M.S personnel too.” Yet Yua kept watching. Izu had stacked everything in a fortress of blue, red and green folders on Aruto’s table. She leaned over, probably speaking to Aruto, and he stood up. Plucked some folders and marched to the wall on his left. Aruto turned around. Waved at them and smiled at Izu with so much softness and affection it almost hurt to look at him. Then he disappeared into the laboratory, and Izu returned to her desk.
Yua sincerely didn’t mind working on her own. But sometimes she thought of the years she worked with Fuwa, then with everyone, and wondered if rebuilding ZAIA was her ultimate dream. Of course, dreams could change as people would. But surely they didn’t feel like air; easy to slip through her fingers and leave her hollow all over again.
Jin’s fingers knocked against Yua’s before curling around them, feather light. Yua ran her thumb over his knuckles in an absentminded fashion.
She cast one more look at Hiden Intelligence. Once polished and untouchable, now bearing warmth found in someone’s hug, someone’s hand, in two people looking at each other as if they held the world.
In some ways, Yua could see herself in that building.
She tugged Jin’s hand. “Let’s go.”
And so they flew away, wings beating in tandem; oblivious to Izu looking out the window with all the tenderness a Humagear could muster.
*
The small shower of rain had long drizzled to a stop. Already the sun was touching the horizon; basking everything in an orange and pink glow. People were filling up intersections, ready to return home.
They flew past these ordinary sights and the skyscrapers that seemed small. The hold between their hands remained fragile. And when they reached ZAIA, Yua knew the clenching of her stomach wasn’t an illusion, for her grip on Jin’s hand tightened.
Nonetheless she landed one foot first on the rooftop with effortless grace. Saffron light engulfed her as the suit disintegrated into particles, and Jin let go of her hand because she was Yua Yaiba again. She tucked the belt into the folds of her jacket and adjusted her ponytail. She chewed her bottom lip – looked up. Jin was crouching on the ledge.
“Thank you,” Yua said.
“Would you do it again?”
“Maybe. Depends on the weather.” She squinted up at the sky. “Are you heading back to Sunrise?”
He hummed in agreement. “We’re working on a system. Then it’s back to Daybreak. I don’t want Horobi doing all the work.”
From tone alone he didn’t seem bothered, yet his head moved a fraction, as if the buildings weren’t obscuring Daybreak. Surrounded by candlelight – or hellfire, for those reliant on a satellite for twelve years. Yua thought of Horobi hooked up to cables as thick as his arms, to supplement the static the Ark filled his head with. She thought about the papers in her office waiting to be signed. Then she thought of Jin, flying to be free of everything the world tried to tie him down with, and looked at a spot on the ground.
Freedom wasn’t easily bestowed to everyone.
Yua stepped forward. A trail of water trickled down Jin’s face, like tears he couldn’t shed. She reached up to wipe it away with her right thumb and cupped his face, mask and all. Jin stiffened for a second, but just as easily relaxed into her touch. His left hand reached up to rest on the skin of her wrist.
Yua offered a small smile. “I’ll see you later.”
“Don’t overdo it,” he answered.
“ZAIA won’t rebuild itself. And I could say the same for you.”
He nodded. His hand lingered until Yua was conscious of a heavy thud in her chest. “Goodbye, Valkyrie.”
He let go. Yua withdrew her hand and watched Jin stand up so his wings could spread out and block the sun. She turned on her heel and walked to the door leading back into the main building. Just as she rested her hand on the handle, Yua looked back. A dark silhouette was flying west, free of gravity’s hold, dancing with the wind.
She exhaled, slow and steady – and opened the door.
Perhaps she should give flying another try.