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You can feel it in the air. Your father.
You play, and ever since you met him, you feel like you can understand something. Not enough to fix the Bloody Rose, not yet. But almost.
His soul.
He isn’t what you expected, really. Your mother, before she left you alone, spoke of him like he was… perfect, if amusing. There was fondness in her voice.
She was quiet about many things, however. Quiet about how she met him, about anything except that he was a genius musician. You have no pictures of them together.
Quiet about why they needed to be so careful. When she disappeared, you figured it was because the world itself was dangerous for her, and thus for you as well. Later you learned that the terror loneliness caused was not a symptom but it’s own disease.
Anxiety.
(Your dad doesn’t know that word. He is shameless, and he is bold, and he is obnoxious and crass, too. He is hated by many, admired by others.
He is nothing like you, but isn’t he? Kiva is hated. And you are called weird, a freak, and other such things, but you have real friends now.
But this isn’t about your mom. It’s about music from your violin that isn’t as good as your dad’s. Music that echoes, hauntingly. A single melody.
You know now that your dad was also a Kamen Rider. He was Ixa, once. Or was he? It’s hard to make clear. Was that real?
Nago’s old friend looked so familiar…
(You remember a boy in a strange outfit, strange hair. Blinking confusedly and going “that wasn’t supposed to happen before disappearing.”
You remember being dragged to school.
You remember your father, but it’s impossible. Time travel… of all things.)
You keep playing, the same song on loop. You know others, but you know it was your father’s favorite to pull out on a whim.
(You played together with him, you think. It might have been a dream.)
His best act was to save a flower. But he was a Rider. Why didn’t you know that?
The more you play, the more you seem to remember.
He saved people. Your mother. Another person. He was just as those awful people seeking reparations said.
You want to understand but you aren’t good at it, entirely.
You wonder. You wonder many things.
You set down the violin. Turn to Bloody Rose.
It has your father’s soul. He feels ever so slightly different. To the man you met. His grave says 1988. You met him in 1986.
You’ve changed in less than a year, and you keep wondering.
In another life, he raised you. Him and mom, and maybe she wasn’t always distant, worried, sad.
Maybe he left you. Or maybe he was a terrible father. But maybe he helped you learn violin instead of your mom. Except he didn’t teach kids. How do you know this?
(You were a child and your mom left and you tried, a little on purpose, to forget.)
Maybe he was proud of you, or pushed you so far out of your comfort zone that you couldn’t do anything at all. Maybe if you knew him properly, you wouldn’t look up to him. Maybe you looked up to him even more.
You wonder if another coincidence-circumstance will bring you together with him. You hope not, with everything that happened.
You have so many wonderings.
(You wonder, if he raised you. Would you be less useless, shy and anxious and unsure? Would you be the same?
Either way… would he still be proud of you.)
The bloody rose plays.
A call to battle.
(Your dad was no fighter, either.)
You set aside your wonderings.