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The Blood-Soaked Gifts We Carry
Taki opens his eyes despite the pounding in his head, slitting them as slowly as he dares, hoping that no one will notice.
When he’s hurt, that usually means that he’s lost some kind of fight, be it against Shocker or another more mundane force. If he’s lucky, he’s in a borrowed bed at Tachibana or Ichimonji’s place; if he’s not lucky…
And today is definitely not his lucky day. He’s in a laboratory, pinned to a table, naked as the day he was born.
“Do not try to fool us with simple ruses, Kazuya Taki.”
The mechanical voice of Shocker’s Great Leader echoes far too loudly in the laboratory space, and Taki can’t quite cover a wince.
A cyborg in a white lab coat rushes over, grabbing Taki by the hair and wrenching his head up so that he’s staring at Shocker’s emblem. The voice emanates from there once more. “You’re hooked up to an electroencephalogram. Feigning unconsciousness will get you nowhere, and will cost you the last few precious seconds of your human life. We wouldn’t want that, would we?”
Everyone in the lab laughs, a chorus of eerie, inhuman sounds.
The cyborg holding Taki’s hair releases him, and Taki just barely keeps his already-aching head from connecting with the hard surface of the table. It’s clear that the Great Leader wants him to be afraid—wants him to grovel and beg. Taki won’t do that, but he can at least ask questions, because the last thing he remembers is eating breakfast with Ichimonji this morning. “What are you planning, Shocker?”
“To eliminate a threat.” The Great Leader’s voice drops to a lower, more ominous register. “You have been a thorn in our side alongside your precious Riders. Well, we’ll see how much they feel like fighting when they face you on the battlefield!”
Something digs deep into his right calf, and Taki screams despite himself, trying instinctively to kick and move away. He can’t manage it, of course. They’ve got him shackled too tightly, spread-eagled and helpless. “You’ll never get away with this!”
“Oh, but we already have. I’m not making the same mistakes again. We only need another ten or fifteen minutes of information with you conscious, and we’ll be able to perfect the brainwashing regiment. Another day or two of modifications, and you will be the perfect tool in my arsenal.”
Something cuts into his right arm, and Taki manages to keep his flinch to gritted teeth and a clenching of his hand that causes blood to patter onto the table at a disturbingly fast pace.
Electronic components are laid out next to his arm—likely are next to his leg, too, but Taki can’t see that far down his body with ease. A kaijin with an owl’s head wearing an incongruous white lab coat holds various metal plates up to his arm, shaking its head at each one.
Maybe… Taki turns away, squeezing his eyes shut as he feels the kaijin shoving something into his arm. Maybe this won’t be so bad. If he can manage to stall them, to keep them from brainwashing him, then maybe he’ll get powers like the others. Maybe he’ll be more use to them than he currently is. Maybe—
Fire explodes in his knee, working its slow way down towards his ankle, and Taki can’t help but scream again.
Perhaps that’s good. Perhaps if he screams enough, Great Leader will continue to put off the brainwashing. It doesn’t matter what they do to his body. His body is just a tool—a tool that he uses to protect people, and he remembers, in the haze of pain, a little bit more of the morning. He was heading into work when one of their informants rushed up. The girl couldn’t be more than eight years old, and Taki would feel worse about that if it weren’t her future that he’s bleeding for right now.
Besides, he protected her. When the Shocker troopers came, he got her on her bike and sent her speeding away, putting his body between the mindless monsters and the girl who was brave enough to help fight them. He doesn’t remember the blow that put him down, but it must have been right by his temple, given where the pain in his head radiates out from.
Not that he can feel the pain in his head much anymore, not over what’s happening to the rest of his body.
“I have the data that I need, Great Leader. Shall I begin the brainwashing procedure?”
Taki’s blood turns to ice, freezing his limbs in place more readily than the restraints. What does he do now? Does he continue to scream? If he seems too afraid, though, it will make Great Leader even more eager to press forward, damn the monster. “Can’t we work out some arrangement where I—” Taki has to pause and breathe for two, three precious seconds as the kaijin continues working on whatever it placed in his arm. “Work for you voluntarily?”
Great Leader laughs, a low, growling chuckle that slowly builds to a cacophonous roar. “You expect me to believe you? How many of my people have you helped kill? No. You will be mine, body and soul. Begin the procedure.”
They don’t stop working on his arm or his leg. Taki thought they would at least give him a little bit of a respite there, but instead the unseen doctor slides a cold metal helmet over Taki’s head. Only when they lean over to cinch a strap beneath his chin tight does Taki realize it’s a young woman. Running his tongue over his lips, he whispers, “You don’t have to do this.”
She smiles back at him, her dark eyes cold and distant. “I don’t, but I’m going to do it anyway. You could never offer me a fraction of what Shocker has.”
Then she’s gone, and the pain in his head rises to a blinding white spike.
He has to fight it.
He has to hold on to who he is.
He has to be strong, to be better than whatever hateful technology they’re wielding, because—
Because…
It’s so hard to keep his eyes open. He’s so tired. All he has to do is close his eyes, trust in Shocker, and—
The entire north wall explodes.
The western wall does so a moment later, causing the room to rumble strangely. The air becomes almost unbreathable, a fountain of dust that chokes Taki as he tries to make sense of what’s happening.
“Destroy that control panel!”
Ichimonji’s voice, and Taki smiles before choking again on the grit in the air. At least he gets to hear Ichimonji’s voice.
“As if I can’t see that!”
Something dark purple explodes deep in his head, and Taki winces, trying to back away from something he can’t even name. What was that?
No, not one that.
Two th ats , at least, but his head hurts so much, and he can’t make out more beyond vague blurs.
Perhaps it will be better if he opens his eyes. When did he close them?
A familiar helmeted form appears above him, and Taki forces his eyes to focus. “Hey, Hongo.” Taki winces, realizing too late that he probably shouldn’t use Hongo’s name here. Though Shocker did kidnap him specifically, so they clearly already know who he is.
Something peels from his scalp, catching in his hair as it does, and Taki whimpers involuntarily. “I need a brush.”
Hongo’s voice is wry and gentle as he reaches out to touch Taki’s cheek. “I think you need more than that, old friend.”
Another horned figure appears by Hongo, a not-quite-mirror-image. “This whole place is going to collapse in just a minute. You want to carry him, or should I?”
Taki doesn’t get a chance to say that he can walk, thank you very much, because Hongo doesn’t bother answering in words. He just snaps the cuffs binding Taki to the table, puts his hands under Taki’s arms, and slings Taki up onto his back.
It’s the last thing Taki’s aware of for a long, long time.
***
Taki wakes on a soft bed, and breathes a sigh of relief.
Two silhouettes are instantly hovering over him, and Taki raises one hand to throw it over his eyes, not ready to deal with what it means that both Riders are home.
That both of them came for him .
“Well, I’m sure glad to see you’re happy to see us.” Ichimonji speaks first, of course, though Taki’s not sure if he’s trying to lighten the mood or make Taki feel bad for retreating.
Possibly both, given Ichimonji. “I’d be happier to see you if my head didn’t feel like someone was pounding railroad spikes through it.”
“No railroad spikes.” Hongo’s fingers very gently take Taki’s left wrist, feeling at his pulse.
Hayato’s fingers tease over a bandage that Taki hadn’t realized is wrapped around his right arm. “Just little nanomachines injected through that thick skull of yours and directly into your brain.”
That gets Taki’s attention, and he sits up abruptly, reaching up to feel at his head.
The room immediately begins to swim around him, and he keels sideways… into Hongo’s protective embrace.
An embrace that feels… wrong.
Not because they haven’t done this before. He and Ichimonji and Hongo have an understanding , a tacit agreement that they will share their bodies with each other for at least as long as this war is going on. What happens after that, well, it will partly depend on which of them survive… and of the survivors, on which of them are able to return to anything resembling a normal life.
But what Taki feels now… he feels his own skin, warm and flushed by the adrenaline surging through his system. He feels his muscles, still weak from what was done to him, vibrating more than they should from just the simple exertion of sitting up.
And he feels…
“Oh.” Sitting up more gingerly, Taki reaches out to take Hongo’s hand in his. Hongo’s skin feels the same as it usually does—just a little cooler than Taki’s, his bones feeling just a little bit firmer than they should.
But Taki can feel it.
He can feel not just Hongo’s fingers in his, but his fingers in Hongo’s . Feel how sensitive Hongo’s fingers are to the warmth coming off Taki’s, and how carefully Hongo is working not to hurt him while touching him.
“Oh.” Taki lifts his eyes, focusing them on Hongo’s. “I… I didn’t expect this.”
“None of us did.” Ichimonji settles down on the bed next to him, placing a hand on Taki’s shoulder.
If Taki allows himself, he can feel this, too—feel the coiled tension that is Ichimonji ready to fight, but without anything to fight right now.
Ichimonji’s hand slides under Taki’s chin, forcing Taki to stare directly into his eyes. “It’s really just you in there?”
“I think so.” Taki doesn’t fight either of them—makes it a point to keep a hand on each of them, to try to strengthen the connection between them so that they will see there is nothing of Shocker in Taki’s mind.
So that, if he’s wrong and there is something of Shocker in him, these friends will purge it before it goes further.
“You idiot.” Ichimonji leans forward, resting their foreheads together. “When we got there—when we saw—I was certain we’d lost you.”
Hongo cuts off the light-hearted remark Taki intended to make by saying, “Another minute later, and we would have. As it was… I’m sorry, Taki. I’m sorry we failed you.”
There’s so much self-loathing buried beneath the words. If Taki weren’t touching him, would he recognize it? If Ichimonji weren’t still holding his chin, would Taki know that Ichimonji feels the same disgust with his cyborg body?
“Don’t apologize for this.” Taki gestures at his head. “I’m not sorry about anything that brings us closer together. Do you know how helpful this could be in planning attacks?”
“Yes, actually.” Ichimonji drawls out the word. “And the answer is… sometimes a little bit, sometimes not at all. This connection we’ve got, it’s not reliable . And I’m sorry that you have it because you were supposed to stay…”
Stay human.
It echoes between them, unsaid but deeply felt by these two damaged men.
Drawing a deep breath, Taki pulls his hands back from his friends and assesses the rest of the damage to his body. He can move the fingers of his right hand, though his arm feels… heavy. Awkward compared to what he’s used to. “What else was done to me?”
“They’d gotten far enough on your arm that it was easier to just… leave the adaptations.” Hongo speaks to the bedspread. “Your bones are stronger, but the soft tissue can still take damage like usual. You’ll have to be extra careful.”
Ichimonji pats around on the bedspread until he finds Taki’s leg. “But your leg’s all right. A nice fresh new scar, but nothing else to worry about.”
“That’s good, because I’ve already got plenty to worry about.” Taki flexes the fingers of his right hand again, trying to get a sense for how this is going to work moving forward. “Come on, you two. Stop hovering, and get into bed with me.”
Hongo frowns.
Ichimonji grins, eyeing the bed. “Doesn’t really look big enough for three of us.”
“We’ll manage.” Taki rolls onto his side, his right arm carefully cradled.
Hongo is the one who slides in first. He settles on the bed behind Taki, and his arm slips over Taki’s waist, a gentle weight. His voice in Taki’s ear is the softest whisper. “You’re impossible and infuriating. You know that, right?”
“You mean incredibly strong and self-assured. The absolute pinnacle of American manhood. That’s me.” Taki presses back into Hongo’s embrace, glad to be held—glad, though he’ll never say it, to be safe here, with this man he trusts not just with his life but with the world.
Ichimonji sighs, and with a long-suffering glare comes around the bed to settle in front of Taki, facing him. Ichimonji’s hand settles right by Hongo’s. “I never want you to lose your humanity.”
“I’ll never believe that you’ve lost yours.” Taki glares into his friend’s eyes. “I don’t kiss anyone that I don’t think is a person, all right?”
Huffing out a sound that’s half-laugh and half-sob, Hayato leans in and presses his lips to Taki’s.
Hongo’s lips press against Taki’s neck a moment later, and oh, heavens above, Taki is going to need to get used to this. There’s so much— so much sensation, so much desire, so much hope and sorrow and wanting . His still-rattled head isn’t able to process all of it, and before five seconds are done he has to break the kiss off.
“It’s all right.” Hongo breathes the words into Taki’s ear again. “We’ve got you, and it’s going to be all right.”
“If we can make it that way, it definitely will be.” Ichimonji’s hands tighten, holding Taki tight—refusing to let him go. Refusing to think about him being lost, no matter how close they came today.
“I’m right here.” Taki pulls Hayato closer to him, though he doesn’t open his eyes. “ And we’re going to be all right.”
They will take this latest trauma, and they will do what they’ve done with all their previous traumas—they will let it make them stronger. Let it knit them more tightly together, a fighting force that cannot be easily broken.
“So… who’s going to tell Tachibana?” Hongo asks.
“Not it.” Taki buries his face in Ichimonji’s hair.
“I’ll tell him, but not for a little while.” Ichimonji kisses Taki’s chin. “ Not until I’m… comfortable.”
Not until they have a few minutes to settle into this. And if part of doing that is spending a bit of time here, wrapped in each other’s arms, feeling each other’s emotions… well.
Taki needs to heal, after all, and what better way to do that than by resting here, in the arms of the two men he trusts most in all the world?