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Eiji doesn’t really expect Tsukasa to have answers. No one else has, either.
Mostly he just wants some new ideas.
You get to a point after five or so years searching where all you want is anything at all that can move you forward, and Eiji is… tired. He’s tired.
The kind of bone deep exhaustion from pain you refuse to let go of because the thought hurts far worse.
(He knows he’ll succeed, but why had Ankh looked so sad when Eiji asked? The future is dark, and Eiji knows he can’t stop whatever is coming. Instead, all he can do is try to reach it, try to pull some small hopes from it.
Try to hope there is some small time where he and Ankh and Hina can be together, with everyone, and at peace.)
But Tsukasa is still… attempting, Eiji supposes, looking at the broken Medal, even taking pictures.
( “Just go with it,” Shotaro had explained in a tired voice. “Kadoya kind of does what he wants, but despite the attitude, what he wants is generally to help.”
“Don’t worry,” Eiji had said. “I have a good amount of patience with that.” )
(He does not think about all the times he treated Ankh with violence or contempt. Ankh deserved most of them, really, and those he didn’t, well…
Eiji has too many regrets to focus on these for long.)
“And this is what’s left of your partner?” Tsukasa asks. “It’s more than most of us get.”
“Most people leave bodies.”
“Sometimes the bodies are worse.”
True. Bodies bleed, or twitch, or just lay there, mangled. Decaying.
A Medal does no bleed. A Medal can be held without the smell, the feel, the inherent disgust of death. Ankh said he died, and it felt like it, but there is hope in a broken Medal.
Medals do not decay. They lie in wait.
(Like a bird. Like Ankh.)
Tsukasa hmms.
“He’s in there,” he says, handing the pieces back to Eiji. “You feel it, yes? The pulse.”
“I… always wondered if it was a hallucination,” Eiji admits. “Only Hina and I can feel it. No one else.”
“Good thing I don’t exist.”
“Oh, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be, it’s a fact,” Tsukasa says. “I’m afraid I have no answers for you. I know a world with Medals research, but their function is… a bit different.”
“Oh.”
“But that doesn’t mean I have nothing,” Tsukasa then says, and Eiji can’t help the hope that fills him. “Your partner, he follows you. He wants to be here. But it’s no quite consciousness. Any awareness he has is through your own desire.”
“Then…”
Tsukasa hmms again.
“One day,” he says. “You’ll want it enough, and your partner will wake up. Or maybe you find a faster way, but I doubt it.”
“No easy answers,” Eiji says. Tsukasa smirks, just a little, but it looks sad.
(He understands, Eiji remembers. Both of them were among those Riders they all knew Showa was especially accusatory at. As though they had grounds to stand on.)
“Not for all of us,” he says. “But don’t you have a promised tomorrow?”
“How…”
“We both know Shotaro,” Tsukasa replies. “Do you think he has a functional filter?”
Eiji blinks. That… is a good point.
“The important part,” Tsukasa says. “Is hold onto it. Plenty others don’t even have a promise.”
Eiji blinks.
“Are you…”
“Oh, not me,” Tsukasa says. “My partner is attempting necromancy. I, meanwhile, am willing to accept it.”
“No, you’re not.”
“…No, I’m not,” Tsukasa admits. “But my existence is a gift. Some things are best left to fate.”
“And, somehow, your words are still the best information I’ve received in years,” Eiji says. Tsukasa smirks.
“I’m very good at my job, OOO,” he says. “Never doubt that.”
Eiji thinks you’re the one of the only other people who can feel the truth in hoping.
Of course Tsukasa is good.
(Of course Decade is good.)
“I just have to keep going,” Eiji says. “And I’ll reach it.”
Tsukasa leans back.
“And in the meantime,” he says. “We’re still Riders. You’re tracking… what’s it called here… Foundation X?”
“Yeah,” Eiji says. “Why?”
Tsukasa shrugs.
“They’re messing with forces in my control,” he says. “Just wanting to make sure someone competent is on the case.”
“And you think that’s me?”
“I think that’s someone whose story isn’t over,” Tsukasa says. “Other Riders, there’s an endpoint. But not us. That means every step takes you to the right conclusion, and if that isn’t good enough, it’ll take you to the people who will fix it.”
Ankh looked so sad when he came from the future.
“I think I understand,” Eiji says. Tsukasa nods.
“I’d say you have the gist of things,” he replies. “Here’s to tomorrow, OOO.”
“Here’s to stories without endings.”
An understanding.