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“Getting late, Natsumikan.”
Natsumi is far too used to Daiki and even Narutaki to fully react to the sound of a familiar and trusted voice behind her, so she doesn’t turn around, but she also doesn’t react as he stands next to her. How long has she just been standing in the center of the living room with the light off?
“Tsukasa,” she says. He turns to her.
“Something on your mind?” He asks. Natsumi turns more fully away from him, unable to face him.
She’d had to do it.
He’s fine, she revived him. Somehow.
She’d…
(“Unforgivable,” she’d called it, but had it been, really? Now, when she knows Tsukasa had been egging her into that fight that he knew would end not just his life but his very existence?)
“You know what it is.”
Tsukasa is silent for a long moment.
“I do,” he says, at last. “I wanted you to do it, Natsumikan.”
“Is that why you killed Yuusuke?”
“I had to do that,” Tsukasa explains. “Doesn’t mean I wanted it. The timing was just… useful. He had to fight me. I had to kill him.”
There’s an ache in his voice not dissimilar to the one that must be on her own. He, at least, had known Yuusuke would live.
“You sound like a cheesy supervillain,” Natsumi says, regretting her words the moment they leave her mouth.
He would sound like that, with a World like his, a past like his. Just like how sometimes Daiki shifts, does something too-polite or too-kind that reminds her about how horrible his world really was or how sometimes Yuusuke brings up some story of his life before becoming a Rider before going quiet, remembering that his crush and his family are all dead.
(Another thought: Maybe he played the roll of villain too well or maybe it was just Natsumi believed it too easily. Maybe that’s why she’d let herself…)
“Maybe so,” Tsukasa says as the moment stretches. Natsumi turns to him. With the lights of the photo studio turned off for the night, his expression is unreadable. Then again, she supposes, it might be such even if the lights were on. “Maybe that’s just my nature, then. Things worked out well enough, when I played my part.”
“Tsukasa…”
He turns to her, and she can feel when his eyes meet hers, even in the darkness.
“I think it’s getting later, Natsumikan,” he says. “You going to answer my question?”
…Damn it, sometimes Tsukasa is so incredibly stubborn. And right.
“I missed you,” Natsumi says. “I was so terrified for you and for Yuusuke. And then…”
And then she watched him kill Yuusuke. And then she killed Tsukasa herself. And then as he died he told her everything and everything would come back.
And then that other Kiva said that wouldn’t include Tsukasa.
Tsukasa’s hand brushes her cheek.
“I get the gist of it,” he says. “I… I’m sorry. But maybe I’ve always had to be the villain of the story.”
Natsumi can’t help the wince at the word, but then she shakes her head, gripping Tsukasa’s hand in hers.
“No, Tsukasa,” she says. “I still refuse to believe it. You’re a hero. Who else would willingly sacrifice their existence for the sake of others?”
And Tsukasa looks away, but he doesn’t pull away, so Natsumi continues.
“As long as I’m here, and Yuusuke’s here, and Daiki’s here, and Grandfather's here, you will never be the villain,” Natsumi says. “I will always be here to welcome you home.”
The silence stretches, once more.
“It’s getting late, Tsukasa,” Natsumi says. Tsukasa laughs.
“Maybe we should go to sleep.”
Natsumi hmms. Then she uses her continued grip on his hand to pull him down, kissing him in the dark.
“Welcome home,” she says, and it’s an offer as much as a plea.
“I’m home,” Tsukasa replies, and it’s a promise.