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Horns blare inside the I-Island Shatterdome, echoing around the cavernous space while the ceiling cracks open like a baseball stadium. Dabi glances up from his schematics, pinning the papers down as the rotors of the ten jump helicopters stir the air, delivering their charge back into her berth.
The Mark 4 Jaeger, Phoenix Fury, looks very little like it’s just been in a battle, but Dabi’s trained eyes scan the giant robot he’s spent years working on, and he picks out the deep scores around the right knee and along the neck where the Kaiju had sunk its teeth in. The joys of watching the Jaeger fights live on TV—he could see when his baby took damage.
Bright side is, he thinks, rolling up the blueprints that outlined the knees and shoulder joints, at least one of the pilots knows what she’s doing.
“Hey Touya!” one of his fellow mechanics calls, waving vigorously and pointing up at the Jaeger. “Looks like the new jockey brought her back just fine!”
Dabi scowls, swiping his tool belt off the worktable and wrapping it around his waist, ignoring the way it chafes against the scars that decorate his torso.
“Don’t go by that name anymore, Iguchi!” he calls back, before heading toward the stairs that’ll take him to the Conn-Pod, or the head, of the robot.
“Right!” The mechanic’s laughing voice follows behind. “Forgot you’re trying to be all mysterious for our new flyboy!”
Dabi snorts, heavy combat boots rattling the metal rungs as he takes them two at a time.
Let him believe what he wants, he thinks grimly, coming level with the entrance to the Conn-Pod.
But knowing what I know about our new star pilot, I don’t trust him as far as Phoenix could throw him.
----
Keigo is practically buzzing in the post-drift high, his grin matching Rumi’s tooth for tooth. They’ve just bagged their third Kaiju kill, and the monster had hardly touched them this time.
“Another defensive run,” he starts.
“Another Kaiju done,” Rumi finishes, smacking her forearm against his in victory. Their drive suits make a clacking noise, and the techs around them smile at each other in amusement at their antics. It’s not uncommon for Jaeger pilots to finish each other’s sentences. Not after linking brains, or drifting, for the time it takes to control their Jaeger and take down the Kaiju threat.
Even now, several minutes after the neural handshake has ended, Keigo can feel the simmering confidence and giddiness from his copilot. Can also feel the stiffness in her knee and shoulder where she’d taken the brunt of the Kaiju’s first salvo while Keigo warmed up their plasma cannons.
“Barely even had to touch the swords this round,” Keigo notes, rolling his shoulders to shake out the phantom stiffness. He’ll recommend Rumi hit the sauna later, when she’s feeling a little less like going another round with a three-hundred-foot primordial beast just for fun.
“If you think your sword arm’s getting rusty, you can meet me in the kwoon at 0600,” Rumi tosses back, pitching her helmet to one of the techs. “Plenty of time to get your ass back in fighting shape, since you’ve been squatting off in Fukuoka all these years.”
Keigo rolls his eyes and hands his own helmet over far more politely, followed by his drive suit gloves and the plating he can pop off without help. The techs get the rest, stripping them down to just the nano-suits clinging to them like a second skin. As they exit the pod, an assistant hands them their matching leather bomber jackets, already embossed with a third kaiju-head patch—denoting their third kill to date in Phoenix Fury.
Rumi grins down at the patch on the back before slipping her jacket on. “Helluva lotta space left on this thing,” she remarks, eyebrows arching knowingly. Keigo grins back.
“Twenty more victories like today, and we’ll really be kitted out,” he agrees with a wink.
“If you call that a victory,” another voice drawls lazily. Keigo’s body stiffens at the sound of it. Slowly, he turns to see Dabi, their head mechanic, strolling toward them down the catwalk, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jumpsuit and a grimace tacked onto his face as he glares at Phoenix’s mangled shoulder.
“Aw, we all know the world is falling apart, Dabs. No need for the doom and gloom act,” Rumi lobs back, a feral smile pulling at her lips. “But you gotta admit, we kicked ass.”
Dabi sighs. “Sure. Maybe next time don’t let it use you as a chew toy first. Gonna pull a few all-nighters to get this rig back in fighting shape.”
Keigo bristles at the assessment, unable to help himself. Dabi had rubbed him the wrong way since day one, when he refused to even give his real name, then proceeded to question everything Keigo ever knew about Jaegers.
Granted, some of those questions were worthwhile, gauging his knowledge. Still, the condescension and obvious dislike had been jarring, especially since Rumi seemed to like Dabi so much. Feeling her affection for the surly mechanic always left a bad taste in Keigo’s mouth.
“If you’d like to take Phoenix out to tango with the next Kaiju to come outta the Breach, you’re more than welcome,” Keigo points out rather stiffly. Dabi trains cool blue eyes on him—looking down on him, even now.
“Nah, I’m not here to be a glory hound,” he shrugs. “Just the grunt who fixes the robot.”
Keigo’s eyes narrow, but he can feel Rumi’s hand at his elbow, dragging him away with implacable strength. It just makes the scowl on Keigo’s face more pronounced, especially because he can feel Rumi’s amusement in their post-drift echoes.
“C’mon, Kei,” she murmurs, leading them toward the cafeteria, “it’s lunchtime anyway.”
“You’re just defending him because he gives you whatever weapon upgrades you want,” he grumbles, passing through the steel doors of the Shatterdome.
Rumi cackles, unashamed. “Sure am! But dude, if you have so many issues with him, why don’t you two work it out in the kwoon?”
Keigo snorts. “As much fun as it would be to beat the guy with a wooden stick, it wouldn’t be fair. He’s not a ranger—hasn’t even had the basics in fighting, let alone the shit we went through under Marshall Yagi.”
Something passes over Rumi’s face, and Keigo can feel the echo of almost guilt from her before she pulls a face. “Oh god, remember when the Marshall made us clean the beach for strength training?”
A groan pulls from Keigo’s throat even as he catalogs Rumi’s reaction for later analysis.
Wonder what she knows about Dabi that she’s keeping to herself?
----
True to his prediction, Dabi is up late working on Phoenix. Late enough to be considered early, in fact— if the Shatterdomes of the world ever slept, what with the apocalypse knocking at their doors. Especially the Shatterdome of I-Island, where scientists were working around the clock to find a way to close the Breach and halt the ever-increasing flood of world-ending monsters pouring out of the portal just above the Marianas Trench. Forget petty rivalries between mechanics and pilots—if I-Island fell, the loss of half the coastal cities in the world would be for nothing.
As would the loss of the loved ones who’d lived in them.
A flash of white catches Dabi’s eye at the thought and his stomach drops into his boots before reality catches up with him.
“If you’re here to ask me to get along with your copilot, it ain’t happening.” Dabi pitches his voice just loud enough for the approaching Rumi to hear.
“Fuck, sometimes that’s just eerie, Touya,” she remarks, hopping to sit on his desk and crunching a couple of blueprints under her well-muscled ass. Dabi scowls at both the name and the reminder that she knows him. After all, her drifts back in the academy with Fuyumi had been almost record-breakingly strong. There’s not much about him she doesn’t know—not after she’d spent so much time inside his sister’s head.
“Saw you in the window reflection,” he murmurs in explanation. And if that hadn’t hurt a bit, seeing that glimpse of white hair and thinking, for just a second…
He shoves memories of his mom and siblings aside, while also shoving Rumi off his knee-and-shoulder-joint improvement sketches. “What do you want, bunny girl?”
Rumi shrugs. “For my two best friends to get along, maybe?” Then, more seriously, “And to let you know that… well, you know how things get shared in the drift?”
Dabi’s jaw muscles bunch with the force of his grinding teeth, but he nods anyway. Sure, he knows how it works. Years of overdoing it in simulations along with one disastrous drift had a lasting effect, permanently carved into his body and brain. He can’t forget.
“Keigo and I,” Rumi continues, eyeing him intently, “Are focused on kicking Kaiju ass, when we drift. Some shit leaks through, sure. But he doesn’t know about you. Didn’t know what he was saying with that crack about you taking Phoenix out for a ride earlier.” Her lips quirk up into a small smile. “Funnily enough, he avoids it when I think about you—tells me to stop chasing the R.A.B.I.T.”
Dabi snorts, tension leaking from his muscles. So, the hotshot ranger didn’t know. Good.
“Alright, whatever,” he grumbles, not wanting to think about star pilot Takami ‘Hawks’ Keigo anymore. Instead, he flicks the rabbit patch on Rumi’s flight jacket. “Ya know, it’s damned weird for people to tell ya to stop chasing yourself, Usagiyama.”
Rumi rolls her eyes, obviously catching the subject change but going with it anyway. It’s a thing Dabi likes about her—she doesn’t push on the emotional shit.
“Anything I can help ya with?” she asks instead, gesturing around at the sketches and array of tools Dabi has scattered around his work station. Dabi snorts.
“You’re not getting any fancy upgrades this time,” he warns. “Marshall said we’re expecting more Kaiju within the week.”
Rumi shifts gears immediately at the news.
“So, put me to work, boss,” she challenges, grabbing his tool belt and hooking it around her waist. Dabi arches an eyebrow, but rolls up his schematics and snags two hard hats from the bucket across the room. He tosses one to the pilot without even looking.
She catches it easily and, not for the first time, Dabi has to wonder if they might have been drift compatible. He pushes the thought aside and stalks past her toward the temporary scaffolding outside Phoenix’s enormous structure.
“Let’s see if you can keep up, bunny girl.”
----
Weeks later and another two Kaiju killed—this time off the coast of New Zealand and South Korea—and Keigo and Rumi are both awake before the birds, thwacking away at each other in the kwoon. Bo staff against bo staff in a ‘tat-tat-tat’ of repeated strikes that never land a blow.
A small crowd has accumulated around the sparring ring to watch, never tiring of the seemingly perfect dance between the two pilots.
For his part, Keigo is in his element, sweat pouring down his temples and back, making his tank top cling to his chest. Across the mat, Rumi looks much the same—her long hair plastered against her neck and her breath coming in harsh pants. The ferocious expressions in their eyes could be mistaken for animosity if not for the grins on their faces.
It’s strange, though, Keigo muses as he blocks another several strikes of Rumi’s, coming low and high in quick succession.
Almost feels like we need to be in our Jaeger… now.
He’s almost unsurprised when the horns blare out throughout the Shatterdome. He’s more surprised that he and Rumi slow their strikes a bare moment before the sound registers, as if they could sense…
“KAIJU IN THE BREACH. STAND BY FOR STATIONS.”
Rumi and Keigo straighten up immediately and, as one, the crowd turns toward the enormous monitor displaying the Kaiju’s movements in the depths of the ocean. It’s estimated size is incredible, definitely a category 2 or 3.
“CATEGORY 3 KAIJU, MAKING ITS WAY NORTH AND EAST, TOWARD JAPAN. JAEGERS FROM HONG KONG AND MALAYSIA EN ROUTE TO SUPPORT MUTINY MARCH OF KYOTO. STANDBY ORDERS REMAIN IN EFFECT.”
There’s not much to do besides watch the screen with anxiety coiling in their guts. Keigo knows they probably won’t be called to assist. Their job protecting I-Island comes first, and the moving island is currently nestled in the heart of the Philippines, too far away to offer assistance.
“You think the other Jaegers will get there in time?” Rumi asks quietly at Keigo’s side. “Mammoth Apostle and Harmony Vortex are only just out of the repair bays from that big sonuvabitch they fought down in New Zealand.”
Keigo purses his lips, thinking back to that fight and trying to remember what damage they’d taken, but before he can reply, a raspy voice speaks up.
“The Jaegers are in even better condition than they started in,” Dabi says, stepping into the space beside Rumi, his eyes also glued to the screen. “PPDC sprung for some shiny new upgrades.”
“Yeah?” Rumi asks. “And you know this, how?”
Dabi shrugs, his oil-stained jumpsuit tugging tight across his shoulders. “You know us. Mechanics are the worst gossips.”
Rumi snickers quietly, and even Keigo feels a small smile forming before he snuffs it out, reminding himself that Dabi is a dick, and dicks don’t get to be funny.
Emergency signal red flashes at the corner of his vision and Keigo turns his attention back to the screen where the water is parting across the mountainous head of the Kaiju, codenamed: Skullcleaver.
With the dome of its head shaped like a battleaxe, Keigo can’t find it in himself to dispute the name, cheesy as it is. Instead, his stomach clenches as they watch the monster drifting down the coast of Japan, making for the Southern tip. Toward the hometown that he’d defended for over a year before being pulled for the I-Island job.
Rumi reaches over and takes his hand without saying a word.
Tension radiates through the crowd as they wait for the Kaiju to arrive at its destination. Keigo’s sweat has cooled into a freezing itch across the back of his neck, but none of them can tear their eyes away from the screen. Too many people still have family back on the main islands, and the Shatterdome seems to collectively hold its breath—the ceaseless machine of apocalypse-survival grinding to a halt in the face of yet more devastation.
When the Kaiju finally emerges in the mouth of Osaka Bay, something in Keigo sags in guilt-ridden relief that his home has been spared, this time.
Still, he clenches Rumi’s hand when the first Jaeger is dropped into the water, directly between the Kaiju and a metropolis of over four million people.
A ripple passes through the crowd as the Jaeger is identified as Mutiny March, a Mark 3 Jaeger from Kyoto. It’s older than Phoenix Fury, and smaller too—barely reaching two-hundred feet. Keigo and Rumi share another glance, thinking the same thing.
It’s not going to be enough.
“Do you know the pilots?” Dabi’s voice is quiet, but in the hush that’s fallen, many heads turn to look at Keigo and Rumi, waiting for their answer.
“I do,” Rumi replies, her voice strained. “Shinji was a couple years ahead of me at the Academy. Tensei was one of the assistants who helped with our training.”
Her hand tightens in his, but Keigo doesn’t try to assure her that the other Jaegers will be there soon. They both know a hopeless situation when they see it.
A ghostly touch has him glancing over to see Dabi resting a hand on Rumi’s shoulder. Keigo’s eyebrows arch in surprise.
Shouldn’t have been able to feel that, he thinks distantly, before turning his eyes back to the screen.
Even knowing the inevitable outcome does not make the next four hours and fifty-two minutes any easier to bear. They all watch as Mutiny March does her best to stand her ground, but the second Skullcleaver emerges, dumping thousands of gallons of water off of its armored hide, they all know the fight will be a short one.
By the time the other two Jaegers arrive, over three-quarters of Osaka has been obliterated. Mostly by the Kaiju, but partly by the anti-Kaiju defenses that activated in a desperate attempt to stop the monster in its tracks. Missiles, explosives, tanks—the works. Nothing had slowed its advance. They’d watched the damn thing swat a twenty-five-ton torpedo out of the air like it was nothing, and had seen the mushroom cloud bloom out of downtown where the weapon struck.
The other two Jaegers arrived at the scene of the slaughter an hour into the attack. And nearly four hours later, they finally put the Kaiju down.
Not soon enough, Keigo acknowledges, closing his eyes. Thinking of the millions of lives lost, and the poisonous spread of Kaiju blood that would end the lives of the survivors sooner rather than later. Thinking of the three Jaegers, two of which would never rise again, and one that was barely standing in the remains of Osaka. Of the pilots who had sacrificed themselves.
Rumi’s hand is cold in his, their fingers bloodless with the ferocity of their grip. Still, he’s not surprised when she pries her hand open and releases him.
“Gonna be in the gym,” she gets out. “If I’m not back in an hour, come get me.”
Come help me, is the unspoken plea. Keigo nods, her grief and rage echoing inside his head like a war drum.
“Okay,” he murmurs, watching the sway of her white hair as she strides out of the kwoon and wishing he could do something about the tear-streaks marring her dark cheeks.
Then he sees another familiar head moving through the crowd, making for the exit that leads back to the Jaeger bay.
Keigo scowls at Dabi’s silent retreat. Bet he’s regretting that comment about pilots being glory hounds now, he thinks sourly.
And with others in the kwoon turning to look at him with pity in their eyes, Keigo makes the snap decision that he’d rather go start shit with his mechanic than be looked at like a walking bodybag any longer.
It isn’t until he’s nearly caught up with Dabi that he begins to wonder why he’s heading toward the Jaeger bay at all. After all, the mechanic had already gotten Phoenix back into prime fighting condition.
The thought slows his steps, but by then they’ve arrived in the massive dome-shaped room, and Keigo’s attention is caught by his Jaeger.
Gleaming and sleek, with ten swords arranged like wings spiking out from her back, Phoenix Fury is a masterpiece of machinery and artistry. A deadly weapon, made for a single purpose: to protect the last hope of humanity.
Keigo gazes up at all two-hundred and fifty feet of her, noting the barely-there welding seams where she’d taken damage in past fights, and the hardly-noticeable paint job differences where new weapons and upgrades had been added over the years.
She has a story, Keigo thinks, heart aching at the thought of her last chapter being played out someday soon, just like Mutiny March.
And I don’t want her story to end.
Just then, he spies Dabi scaling one of the exterior scaffolding units up to a point near Phoenix’s ribcage. He’s got a load of wiring coiled over one shoulder, heavy gloves on, and what looks like a handheld blowtorch clenched between his teeth. Keigo raises an eyebrow, watching as the mechanic starts removing plates from the exterior, going for the…
Oh, Keigo thinks, flashing back to how the electric charge from Mutiny’s plasma cannons shorted out. How the malfunction had left them defenseless, and resulted in the Conn-Pod getting ripped off and thrown half a mile down the coast.
Phoenix’s main connection from the core to the cannons is right around where Dabi is working, he thinks.
Keigo stares thoughtfully at Dabi’s half-visible back, thinking that maybe he’s underestimated the mechanic after all.
----
Two days later and he’s back on the fence and staring narrowly at Dabi, who’s presenting at the head of the conference table.
“I’m gonna ask K-Science if they can weaponize that glare,” Rumi remarks sarcastically under her breath. “Might be a useful laserbeam against the Kaiju.”
Keigo snorts but doesn’t let up on the foul expression. Not when Dabi is proposing they get their next round of upgrades from the black market.
“...noticed weakness in the connection between the shoulder joint and the neck, last time we did repairs,” Dabi reports to the higher-ups. “Makes the reaction time between two and five seconds slower. PPDC has told us that’s an acceptable margin, given the cost of replacement parts, but I have connections that could get us upgraded reaction speed at half the cost.”
Probably because your ‘connections’ are a bunch of low-life thugs who make their profit off selling Kaiju bits to stupid civilians.
“As much as I like going fast,” Keigo interjects, voice tight. “I’m not willing to risk my Jaeger or my copilot for some back-alley improvements that might break at a critical moment. Like, say, when we’re trying to keep a Kaiju from tearing this facility apart.”
The look Dabi shoots him could light fires, but Keigo notes the shift in the rest of the big wigs from intrigued to cautious, and knows his statement has made an impact.
“Ranger Takami is right,” Commander Tsunagu says slowly. “Particularly if the Pan-Pacific Defense Corp has already approved the current components. It would be foolish to risk the lives of our pilots or those at this facility just for a bargain. You, perhaps more than anyone here, should understand that.”
Dabi’s nostrils flare, and his spine straightens indignantly.
“I would not propose this if I thought it would be a risk,” he says stiffly. “I vouch for my connections with my life.”
“Be that as it may,” the commander reiterates, indicating the end of the meeting.
Dabi glares at Keigo, with purple bags under his bloodshot eyes and shoulders rigid with repressed anger, almost making Keigo regret speaking up. Instead, the pilot presses his lips together and walks away.
He wasn’t raised in the PPDC, he reminds himself, feeling turquoise eyes boring into his back. They know what they’re doing.
----
A week later, and Keigo wakes up in the medical bay feeling like his arm has been stepped on by a Jaeger.
Or torn off by a Kaiju, he thinks groggily, staring at the blurry grey ceiling in confusion and trepidation. The drugs he’s on muddle his memory into chaotic images and emotions, but he knows that if he can still feel his arm through the pain killers, then something truly awful must have happened.
It takes him ten minutes to work up the guts to look down at his right arm, and to his utmost surprise, it’s just laying there atop his hospital sheets. Though the tan skin is now imprinted with fine red scars, mapped out like a grid. Like circuits...
The confusion lingers for only a moment before realization sets in.
“Rumi,” he whispers, horror jolting through his soul. He can almost feel her recoil, wherever she is, while pieces of her anger and relief and pain crackle back to him like a staticky radio.
“Finally figured it out, huh?” an entirely too familiar voice asks.
Keigo turns heavy eyes toward the corner of the room to see Dabi sitting there, elbows on his knees and hands clasped, white-knuckled, in front of him. His expression isn’t angry, but his eyes burn with rage.
“Two seconds faster, and she would have kept the arm,” Dabi informs him quietly. “Five seconds faster, and her leg would have been spared, too. But the PPDC said those seconds were acceptable, didn’t they?”
So that’s why my leg hurts too, Keigo thinks fuzzily before his brain catches up with him.
“The Shatterdome?” he croaks, throat raw. Dabi looks disgusted.
“Your copilot just got maimed, and all you can think about is your damn job?” He shakes his head.
“Mission… to help… save humanity,” he coughs out, closing his eyes at the ache in his throat, his heart, his whole body. His arm and leg burn where the circuits of his drive suit had overloaded when his copilot lost her limbs. God, Rumi, I’m so sorry.
“Can… feel… Rumi,” he tries to explain. She’s alive and hurting and mad, but she’s still here.
Dabi watches his struggles with a cold expression. “Then you know she’s never going to pilot again, don’t you?”
Keigo feels heat behind his eyelids, pressing so hard, he thinks he might shatter. Like the Kaiju that’d held them against the ocean floor and ripped through the side of the Conn-Pod, tearing into Rumi in a rush of water and claws and terror. He shakes at the mere echoes of their fight.
There’s the sound of a chair scraping against concrete and a door being opened. Dabi doesn’t slam it, though, and Keigo wonders if it’s because of the tears streaming down his face.
----
To hear Rumi tell it, Dabi had been an ‘insensitive bastard’ and ‘overly harsh’ on Takami. By the mechanic’s reckoning, he hadn’t been harsh enough.
“Keigo saved the island by himself, Touya,” Rumi had pointed out, her remaining hand aiming a crutch at him threateningly. “I was totally out of it, and Keigo managed to put four swords through the thing’s skull by himself. You know how fucking hard that is.”
And he does. Solo drifting is almost impossible for most pilots—the neural load of commanding such an enormous machine too much for one human brain.
Takami did it though. And when Dabi rewatched the reels, he’d even grudgingly admitted that the pilot had not only saved Rumi’s life, but the whole goddamn island too.
Which is why he’s in the kwoon at 0556, waiting for the pilot to show up.
“You know, when my doctor recommended I try some light exercises, I don’t think this is what she had in mind,” that lilting Fukuoka drawl calls from the entryway. Dabi turns to see Takami standing there with a curious expression on his face and wearing the workout clothes Dabi had suggested.
The mechanic picks at his own long sleeves self-consciously, wondering if this is a good idea at all.
“Think what Chiyo meant was for you to ‘get out of the med bay and stop moping’,” Dabi says honestly. Still, Takami’s eyes narrow, and Dabi blows out a sigh of irritation.
Fuck, why is it so hard to talk to him?
“Here,” he snaps, tossing Takami the other bo staff, heart throbbing against his ribs.
Takami catches the weapon easily, twirling it around his body in an annoying display of competence. Dabi’s own grip tightens on his staff, re-remembering the feel of polished wood in his hands.
“Did Rumi guilt you into this?” Takami asks casually, though his voice catches on his copilot’s name. Or ex-copilot, now.
Dabi grimaces. “Rumi deserved better.”
From you, from me, from the fucking world.
But he thinks Takami might understand, as the pilot dips his head in acknowledgment before taking position.
“She always said we should work out our differences in the kwoon,” Takami says tightly, nodding his readiness. Dabi snorts, then goes in for a shoulder level strike.
Takami evades, leaning out of range only to dart back in like an arrow, aiming to sweep Dabi’s front leg.
He’s fast, Dabi thinks, moving with the sweep in a quick arc so that it never makes contact while spinning his bo around for a head strike.
The pilot’s blond hair whips to the side as Dabi’s blow swipes over his ducking head, and Dabi doesn’t have time to course-correct before he feels the blunt end of a bo staff jab him in the ribs.
“One to zero,” Takami says, dancing back to reset on feet that barely seem to touch the floor. His expression is fierce and calculating as he seems to ask himself the question every ranger gets drilled into them at the Academy.
Are we drift compatible?
Dabi grits his teeth, this time waiting for Takami’s first move. Parrying the pilot’s head strike and sweeping the bo wide when Takami aims for his solar plexus.
“Rude,” he comments as he taps Takami under the chin on the upswing. Blond eyebrows arch high.
“One to one, then,” Takami says, golden eyes glittering. Dabi just smirks, as they reset in unison.
The dance continues back and forth as they match each other point for point. Sweat rolls down their faces while they both pant for air, both fighting for the final strike that will end the match.
“Is it hot in here, or is that just the sexual tension?” an all-too-smug voice calls out from the sidelines, and Dabi finds himself blinking in surprise at the number of people who’ve gathered around.
Rumi laughs at his deer-in-headlights expression, and then Dabi feels the brush of wood against his Adam’s apple.
“Five to four, my win,” Takami declares, sounding almost bemused. Dabi takes one look at his face and wishes he hadn’t, as fierce golden eyes bore into his.
“It’s just hot,” Dabi tosses back at Rumi casually, though he swallows hard when she arches an eyebrow at him. Clearing his throat, he nods his head at Takami in lieu of a bow, and steps away from the weapon.
“Good match, Takami,” he says dryly. “Consider that my apology.” Again, both of Takami’s eyebrows go up, and he crosses his arms in a distinct show of skepticism.
Fuck, Dabi thinks, stepping off the mat—away from those curious eyes and the decision he’s made.
“Maybe if you hadn’t worn such a heavy, long-sleeved shirt, it wouldn’t have been so ‘hot’,” Rumi calls out pointedly to his retreating back.
Dabi flinches but doesn’t break stride.
----
Keigo is beyond curious.
He can fight. He’s been trained as a ranger. How did I not know? Why isn’t he a ranger?
His pace quickens as he hurries to catch up to the mechanic, whose longer legs have the advantage here.
We’re drift compatible, you asshole, get back here.
The clanging of Dabi’s door slamming shut up ahead of him doesn’t dissuade Keigo one whit. Instead of knocking, he simply grabs the handle and yanks it open.
Only to see Dabi, in the process of stripping out of his long-sleeve shirt, exposing the scars that cover his torso like a blueprint.
Circuitry burns, Keigo’s mind supplies, knowing the pattern on sight, having seen them in the mirror just that morning. Pilots often got them when the pain sensors of their suits overloaded or too much energy was re-routed at the loss of a limb… or a partner.
“You were a pilot,” Keigo states, moving further into the room when Dabi doesn’t immediately chuck him out. The mechanic’s shoulder muscles tighten, and he lets the shirt fall to the floor.
“I was, yeah,” Dabi agrees, voice strained. “Long time ago.”
Keigo takes another step forward, almost close enough to touch the grid of raised, angry scarring that maps its way across Dabi’s back. He’s never seen circuitry scarring this bad before.
It makes him wonder what happened. Makes him wonder, after so long and after such a bad injury, why Dabi’s offering to be a pilot once again.
Because that’s what he’s doing, if Keigo’s reading the situation right. No other reason for Dabi to expose his skill and their compatibility in the kwoon like that, otherwise.
“I always figured you and Rumi would be drift compatible,” he remarks. Dabi snorts and finally turns to face him.
The scarring across his chest isn’t as bad. Burn patterns streak down his pectorals and wrap around the sides of his ribcage. They also mar his arms from shoulder to wrist, which explains the long sleeves.
“We would have been,” he confirms steadily. “She used to drift with my sister.”
Keigo takes that in, eyes tracing the story written into Dabi’s skin. A story like Phoenix’s, if he decides he wants to hear it.
Don’t kid yourself, you already decided when he hit you with a stick.
“Rumi and I have one of the strongest drifts in the force, you know,” Keigo says thoughtfully, finally meeting Dabi’s gaze. The mechanic watches him like he already knows where Keigo’s going with this.
“I know.”
“Think Rumi would kick both of our asses with one leg if we didn’t try and match that, at least,” Keigo smiles, offering his hand.
Dabi only pauses for a second before taking it, grip firm and fingers warm.
“Then we better make her proud.”