Chapter Text
Ichika giggled to herself as she worked on her dress. She still couldn’t believe what had happened since she found herself in the past. Even the fact that she was in the past to begin with was always something that made her a little shocked. Whenever she would see her Mama as young as her she stared in confusion in the mornings.
“...What do I look like in the... never mind don’t answer that!” Was always her Mama’s comeback. But seeing her Papa eating her food was exactly the same even though he was now eating at Itokan. Naomi would get her revenge in a way making Ichika change her own diapers whenever it truly annoyed her about her confusion about looks.
But she was happy. Happy with Cobra. And he was happy with her too...even if he didn't show it. She had sat all of the leaders of the gangs down almost as soon as things started to settle down after the last gang war. She knew in her past that was the last day the gangs were active...but she was worried about Cobra without having his friends around.
So...she made them all get along. Rocky was the first one to cave...though like Cobra he didn’t want to show it. He just stared at his gang after she pitched the merger of the gangs. A look that told Ichika clearly. “Listen to what she says or you deal with me?” Though it was pointless they were all smirking in agreement.
The Rude Boys weren’t all that bothered as long as they could take care of their family in the Nameless City or rather Nameless Ship now. They had found an abandoned tanker ship that had nearly sunk off the coastline years before. No one bothered to remove it due to management saying it was too costly. So they left it there to rot. And this new alliance would mean getting food to the ship they now called home would be so much easier.
Murayama just smiled at her the same way he had when she found him to save Cobra. “You have a ballsy one, Cobra-chan.” The one that Ichika was most interested in was Daruma Ikka. She never saw anything like them in her future. And they never saw anything like her. Hyuga, though, was taking it as a challenge working with her. A bet that if he won he would win big and be able to rub it in the face of Cobra that his girlfriend failed big. And if he lost, everyone would win bigger.
Sannoh was the most confused of all of them. First was Cobra. He had NEVER been interested in any woman before Ichika. But every time he would talk to her and say her nickname of Chika they felt his raw emotions. Even if he never said them. Then there was Naomi and Yamato.
Ichika, Cobra, Yamato, Naomi, and even Murayama agreed that they should keep her being from the future to themselves. So hearing Ichika constantly call both of them Mama and Papa was weird seeing as they said she was Naomi’s cousin and that is why she resembled her. But they would laugh it off and say that when they were kids Naomi was always looking out for her like a mother and now that she was married to Yamato he was her Papa.
Then there was Yamato himself. Whenever Cobra would take Ichika out for a date he would act like a father eyeing the man his daughter was going out with. Cobra would just playfully shove him and tell him to eat his food before baby Ichika took it all. All because he would eat with baby Ichika in his lap. Which would cause Chika, who was dressed for a date, to glare at Cobra for the joke.
And suddenly she was now their overboss? It was so confusing that they didn’t know what to say. They trusted both Yamato and Cobra with their lives. And if both would follow her lead they would as well. But the one that threw everyone for the biggest loop was when the members of the Mighty Warriors just showed up to the meeting place.
“...And you guys are?” Ichika asked, eyeing the wanna-be rapper thugs.
“We are the Mighty Warriors...and we’ve been listening long enough to the cuddle fest to know that you are starting something big here...and we kind of want in.” Ice said with a smirk.
“EH?” Everyone yelled.
“Easy kiddos.” Ice said, looking at everyone’s reaction to this. “We don’t want to join this SWORD shtick...but we see what you are trying to build as a way to get some money, is all. So we are here and will be good little boys and girls until we see how this plays out.” Ice smiled at her.
“Why are you guys agreeing to her demands so easily? I asked for less with the fighting alliance and almost all of you told me to go to hell.” Cobra gave all of them a heated glare.
“Easy, Cobra,” Hyuga smirked. “She’s cute. And you’re not.” Ichika playfully shoved Cobra and stuck out her tongue which caused a smirk to spread across his face.
So she was the leader of the biggest gang in the history of this town. Even bigger than Mugen. And she was giggling making this very special dress with the help of her Mama. It was a dress she had been longing to wear ever since she got here in the past...her wedding dress.
“You done sewing my new bike cloth yet?” Yamato called down the hall.
“PAPA! I told you I was sewing something special!” Ichika sang with a smile thinking about the day that she would wear this.
“I know you are! My new bike cloth!” He entered the room with a grin.
Ichika stopped what she was doing and looked up at her father. Fire and anger in her eyes that could never be matched by any of the fights he had been in. “Say that again...YAMATO!” Ichika growled.
Yamato swallowed hard before turning to Naomi. He gave her a hurried kiss before quickly exiting the room.
“That’s better.” Ichika smiled down at her dress. Then she turned to her mother. “He does know I am getting married soon right?”
“He knows. I think he just has a problem dealing with the idea.” Naomi laughed. “And he certainly never thought his best friend would be the one his daughter would marry.”
Ichika laughed at that. “Neither did I Mama...but meeting Cobra as a ghost...” Ichika then realized she never told them about that and looked at her mother.
“Ghost?”
Ichika cursed. “I-I was asked to write about the gang wars in the future.” Ichika sighed thinking about how she would say the next part. “I met Cobra after he died. He talked to me about the war. About his desires to combine every gang. I fell in love with him then Mama. But he was already dead. It was a pain I don’t want to wish on anyone.”
“So that day..” Naomi looked sad.
“He was going to die, yeah. That was why I was so desperate to save him.” She took her dress and hugged it close to her realizing how close it might have come to her not making it for Cobra. “I love him so much, Mama. He is everything I have ever wanted.”
“Even though he stays silent and carries the world on his shoulders?” Naomi sat down and took one of her hands. “Are you sure it’s not the idea of him you’re in love with?”
Ichika thought about this for a minute. “I’m sure. I want to take some of that pressure off his shoulders.” She smiled. “That is why I took the job as the ‘overboss’. Seriously, what was Papa thinking when he coined that for my position?”
“You are overseeing everyone, so I suppose he thought it a good name? I have given up trying to figure your father out.” Naomi chuckled a moment before sobering. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Ichika. Getting involved is..not easy. You have to accept that there are things you can’t help with. Things that you won’t ever understand because you’re on the outside. Times when what you believe will contradict what Cobra believes. And times when he will ignore your wishes because he has to stay true to his own code.”
Ichika thought about everything that she heard. “Not understanding Papa doesn’t get better with age.” Ichika chuckled. “And I know that too, Mama.” She was opening up to her mother right now and her darkest secret couldn’t not come out at that moment. “I-I killed Li. Not Murayama...me.”
Naomi’s eyes narrowed. “Murayama lied then?”
“No,” Ichika said timidly. “That was like the fourth loop of Cobra’s death...” Ichika watched her mother's eyes widen. “I got here in the past and lived through a few loops where Cobra would always die at the end and it would reset. I stumbled around a lot until I talked to you and Papa. After I talked to both of you about where Cobra was...I watched Li kill Cobra as he protected me.” A tear formed in her eyes.
“The next loop I went straight to Li...and I sliced that mother fucker up.” She had a dark look in her eyes as she relived that loop for the first time in a long while. “But Cobra found me. Covered in his blood and...” Ichika chuckled sadly letting that darkness fade away. “He told me ‘ Killing just causes more issues ’. So I will let him be who he is because he will keep me from breaking in this just as much as I lighten his shoulders. We keep each other sane.” Ichika wiped her tears away. She hadn’t thought about that loop in a long while and telling someone about it brought all that pain of seeing Cobra dead back to her.
Naomi quietly hugged her. “I think you need to go have some fun right now.”
“Yeah...but you were asking about this stuff for a reason right?” Ichika asked with a smile. “Is this about what happened the other night? Why Cobra left Itokan when he got heartburn? He hasn’t been the same since that night. Do you know where he went or why he left?”
“I don’t know where he goes. As to why..” Naomi looked uncomfortable.
“Something I have to ask Cobra then huh? PAPA YOU CAN COME IN NOW!”
The door opened a crack, Yamato’s eyes peering in.
“I’m not going to hurt you...well, I will if you tell Cobra about Li or how watching him die still affects me this much after all this time. The fact that I came back in the first place was a hurdle we had to get over in the beginning. If he knew what happened in every single loop or that...or that I can still have the random nightmare about his death...it would add to his weight on those shoulders. Where does he go?”
Yamato dropped his eyes, not answering her.
“That bad?”
“...He asked me not to tell you...but you are like your Mama, so you figured that out already.” He sighed as he thought for a minute about what he should say. The fact that Ichika wasn’t just some random woman weighed against the years of loyal friendship with Cobra. “But...I can say he has been hanging around his gas station a lot lately...even the old cemetery nearby.”
Ichika’s eyes widened. “...Old cemetery? It...It can’t be. It can’t fucking be!” She rushed out of the house leaving her parents confused.
Cobra sat on the bench, his eyes staring into the distance. The lights from the town barely reached the cemetery, but he didn’t mind the dark. His thoughts were racing, the brown bag beside him imposing.
“COBRA!” Ichika yelled, trying to see in the darkness. She then thought about it. If what she was thinking was true she didn’t want to be harsh. “Cobra?” she asked softer but loud enough for him to hear her.
“Chika?!” His voice sounded alarmed.
When she heard his nickname for her her heart beat faster as it always did. She found him sitting on the bench...near where he would have been buried. She sat next to him. “D-Do you really remember this place?” she asked, trying to cuddle up to him as she always did.
“Mhm.” He went quiet again, one hand going to his chest.
Ichika thought for a minute. “That first kiss we shared here was the best kiss I had in my life...up until I saw you again. Alive.” She smiled at the blank spot that was his grave once upon a time. “Are you freaking out with that knowledge?”
“It was the only kiss I’d ever had.” His voice was soft beside her. “Did you know it wasn’t my first time coming close to death? When Murayama did his pirate impression on Li, I mean.”
“You didn’t talk about that last time we were here...but Mama told me there were hard times in your past. Not what. But that they were hard times. Is...Is this connected to why you remember all of this now? Because all of this started the other night. I knew that wasn’t your normal stoic bastardness showing its very ugly head.”
He shrugged a shoulder. “The memories have been returning for a week or so. But the first time I faced death was different. I tried to protect someone.” His free hand clasped the small brown bag so tight his knuckles cracked.
“...You didn’t want me to know this because it would worry me?” she said looking at the bag. “I don’t know if you remember the loops I went through...but you protected ME with your life. So I am not surprised. W-What’s in the bag?”
“The difference is I succeeded in protecting you.” He sighed and handed it to her. “I failed the first time. If Kohaku hadn’t come, that spot would still be occupied.”
Tears formed at the thought that this was the place where he was buried. But she opened the bag to reveal Bingast. “That dinner...gave you heartburn?” she asked, confused looking at him.
“I’ve had stomach issues ever since..but I can’t bring myself to take this.” He quickly went silent, his lips tight.
“I told Mama that I want to take some of the weight off these shoulders. Please let me help you with this burden?” Ichika said, kissing his cheek.
“Ever notice how the consistency is similar to wet cement?”
Ichika looked at the bottle in her hands. Then at Cobra. “MY GOD.” she moaned. “Someone force-fed you cement?!”
“Kuryu.” Cobra’s voice was low. “I wouldn’t give them Smokey.”
“I’m going to find these fuckers and I am going to kill them!” Ichika raged...then she thought about the line Cobra had told her before. She let out a breath. “... Killing just causes more issues ...” she repeated again and again.
“Didn’t matter in the end though. They still got what they wanted.” Cobra spoke again. “I failed him. I used to come here and wish I’d died with him..”
Ichika had tears in her eyes again. “He wouldn’t have wanted that.” She was trying to hold herself together in more ways than one. Hearing what he went through was pushing her back to that loop where she just wanted to find them and slice through them repeatedly for hurting her Cobra. And not fall apart hearing him wishing that he had died long before he died the first time for her.
“He didn’t deserve what they did to him.” Cobra’s words came from between clenched teeth, his muscles tight against her cheek. “He had a sad life and a undeserved death. Just so some assholes could hide their sins. I swore to protect everyone in town, but failed him. I watched his family cry and wanted nothing more than to disappear. I held it together long enough to watch the bastards be arrested, then did exactly that. For two weeks.”
“Neither of you deserved the deaths you got, baby.” Ichika sobbed into his arm. “Papa showed me your autopsy photo. He carried it around in his pocket. Death ALWAYS hurts those that lived.”
“He shouldn’t have done that. He should have forgotten it ever happened.” Cobra abruptly stood. “It was comforting, you know?”
“Comforting?” Ichika asked, looking at his back. “...And if he should have forgotten it ever happened...why shouldn’t you?” She stood up and turned her back to him. “Going through that time loop shit I figured out what happened to you. You fought Li, you called Papa to apologize for that damn fight, and he was brought to your body after it was too late.” She turned to face him and forced him to look at her. “HE BLAMED HIMSELF FOR NOT BEING THERE QUICK ENOUGH TO SAVE YOU BAKA!”
Cobra’s eyes were stormy, his fists clenched tightly. “WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO SAY?! It didn’t happen to this Yamato. I can’t apologize for what he doesn’t know!” He went deathly quiet before murmuring “It was comforting being free. Being able to apologize to Smokey. Riding with Tatsuya again. Not having any more pain.”
Ichika sighed before she resolved herself to do the one thing she had to do. She made sure he was looking at her...and then slapped him as hard as she could. “I LIVED THROUGH ALL OF THAT!” She roared. “I lived in that world. I saw the effects your death had on Yamato. I saw the pain of that world. And NEITHER of them would want you to just apologize to them for living. THEY WOULD WANT YOU TO APOLOGIZE TO THEM FOR NOT LIVING YOU STOIC BAKA BASTARD!”
He blinked rapidly at her, one hand going to his cheek for several moments. Then his eyes darkened. “YOU DIDN’T GIVE A DAMN UNTIL YOU HAD THAT ARTICLE TO WRITE! DID YOU EVER ASK YAMATO ONCE ABOUT ME BEFORE THAT? WHAT HAPPENED WASN’T IMPORTANT TO YOU UNTIL THEN! SO SAVE ME YOUR LECTURE! WHY DON’T YOU JUST GO BACK TO YOUR OWN TIME!” With a disgusted look, he got on his bike and rode away without looking back.
Ichika stifled a sob hearing the last line in her head. She steadied herself and tried to rein in these thoughts. “Fine.” She breathed deeply before she dug out her prehistoric phone. “You will always be that stubborn stoic bastard won’t you, Gang Leader-san?” Ichika sighed she would normally love that about him. But right now he was focusing on death and what it has taken from him and him alone. He was lost and she had to bring him back. Not just for her but for SWORD. She thought about what her next move should be. “...Murayama you better pick up the phone. Cobra-chan needs us,” she said getting out her phone to call the man crush in.
“Yo Boss Lady.” Murayama teased her when he answered.
“There is one man we both love...and he needs us. Cobra-chan needs us. He needs both of us to wake him the fuck up.” she said without bothering with pleasantries. “So get your ass over to his gas station NOW!”
“Yes ma’am.” The phone went dead.
“Cobra...the bride is going to make sure the groom is showing up for their wedding. If you like it or not!” She got in her car and went to the Hino gas station.