Chapter Text
(11/1/24: We now have cover art! Commissioned from Expo (lethalexposure)!)
A bright light coated the night sky in white. The flare lasted perhaps half a second, but as though the moment had been captured with a camera’s flash, that half a second would remain in Sergeant Major Kururu’s mind for the rest of his life.
Even through his specialized glasses, the flash obscured Kururu’s vision with cloudy blobs. Still, he pressed onward at full speed, his mecha thrown into overdrive. At that point, he was still so laser focused on making it in time, he failed to register what had really just happened. A green dot representing his destination blipped on his pocket tablet, which was attached to his dashboard. One more minute. At his current velocity, that’s all he needed.
It wasn’t until an intense gust of air blew directly into his face that the sergeant major instinctively yanked back the Kururu Robo’s thrusters. He gripped the handlebars as the short stop sent him lurching forward. His sight was still clearing, and his glasses had almost fallen off his face, but the expanding sea of red and yellow just meters below was unmistakable. The hot air from the blast came close enough to tickle his feet, but the fire was just far enough away that he and his vehicle were unharmed, leaving him no need to activate his shields.
That’s when the realization began to set in.
Arrested in midair, Kururu watched helplessly as the fireball began to fizzle out. Time slowed to a crawl. His heartbeat rang in his ears at a tempo at least triple that of the GPS’s beeps. That was the first sign the sound had been restored, though such reasoning wasn’t occurring to Kururu at the moment.
Eventually, the fireball was reduced to nothing but a lingering breeze, and just below Kururu was a seemingly endless field of charred sand and giant glyph-shaped stones.
There was no one else in sight.
After having been stunned into a complete lack of coherent thought for a bit, a single word reverberated through Kururu’s mind—
Shit.
Kururu shoved the thrusters forward once more, all but nose-diving toward the ground. He pulled up just in time to avoid crashing, though the bottom of the mecha did skid, kicking up black sand in the process. While the mecha was still slowing against the inertia, Kururu wasted no time in leaping out of his seat. His knees buckled on the jump, and he soon found himself with a mouthful of charcoal. He didn’t let his two successive less-than-graceful landings faze him at all, and with more arm strength than he realized he had, the Keronian pushed himself onto his feet like a spring, wobbling slightly as he reoriented himself.
Rather ironically given the situation, Kururu was surrounded by overwhelming near silence, with nothing but the dim whirring of his shoddily parked mecha filling the void. Add in the weight pushing down on his chest, and it was almost like being in a black hole. He swiveled his head around, looking for any sign whatsoever that he wasn’t alone. None came. He parted his lips, and the brittle air rushed through the gaps in his clenched teeth.
“Fuck.”
Kururu’s utterance came out low and gravelly, a voice so unlike his usual that, under different circumstances, he might have laughed at himself. But now he could hardly breathe, let alone laugh. Against his better judgment, he whipped out his pocket device and checked the display, which was set to show the status of the energy readings coming from the old reality pen. Sure enough, a red-bordered box reading No signal detected flashed on the screen. Even supposing the pen itself had broken prior to the explosion, even small shards of Koredinite radiated the same energy, however faint. The most likely explanation was that the mineral had disintegrated beyond recognizability.
Kururu grunted and hastily tossed the device onto the ground. He then pressed a combination of buttons on his headphones, exposing their antennae, which instantly turned into mini helicopter blades.
“Shit. Fuck. No, no, fuck, shit.”
He muttered to himself endlessly as he patrolled the area as quickly as his backup flight mechanism could carry him. He checked around every one of the stone glyphs the sand was littered with. Over. Under. Behind. He took great care not to leave a single inch of ground uncovered. He was on autopilot. Pure desperation fueled him.
Eventually, Kururu realized the search would remain fruitless. He descended near the device he had haphazardly dropped before and recovered it. His hands shook as he fiddled with the screen, attempting to open up the phone function.
Against all logic, Kururu bargained with himself. Maybe the boy had outrun the explosion somehow, using whatever last bit of energy was in his pen to escape. He was quite agile for a Pekoponian, to the point where Kururu questioned if he even was one. If he was indeed pure-blooded, perhaps he had undergone some alien tampering before the Keronians’ arrival. That was Kururu’s speculation, at least. He never got around to confirming it. He decided against asking directly—it was something he wanted the satisfaction of figuring out on his own, and he wasn’t sure if he would get an honest answer anyway. He just needed more time.
He had to have more time.
Kururu punched 326 into his contact field and jammed his finger into the dial button. He put the device up to his ear. One ring. Two rings. Three. Four. Beep. The default robotic voice of the answering machine played through the speakers.
Kururu hung up, then called again. And again. And again. After hearing the answering machine’s droning spiel for the tenth time, he cried out and chucked the device as far as he could. It ended up slamming right into the metal body of the Kururu Robo. It didn’t break. A mere collision wasn’t enough to shatter the near invincible alloy the inventor had built his pocket pad with. It was honed to perfection, like most of his gadgets. They only malfunctioned because he allowed them to. He designed many of his inventions with the ability to act outside the bounds of their original programming because it was more interesting that way. In other cases, he just couldn’t be bothered to iron out certain issues.
If Kururu really needed something to work with a hundred-percent success rate, however, he had no difficulty doing so. He could do anything he put his mind to. He was a super genius. A miracle worker. He always pulled through. He didn’t fail. He refused to fail.
Therefore, the intelligence officer concluded, none of this was really happening. He finally managed to chuckle to himself, despite nearly choking as he did so. Of course he made it in time. He fixed his mistake. He did it right. He was just dreaming. Or hallucinating. He was pretty tired. Very tired, in fact.
Kururu’s head began to feel numb. His vision started to flicker. He felt his back hit the ground. The sand was more soft and inviting than he had expected.
Saburo couldn’t have been dead. That would be really stupid.
And then the world faded to black.
Kururu awoke to the sensation of the wind lapping against his body. As he slowly opened his eyes, he was greeted by a flurry of blurry white smears in the navy sky. Confusion set in as his senses returned to him one by one. What had just happened? Why was he in the air? Was that jet thrusters he was hearing?
He soon noticed there was a sensation against his chin that was both squishy and…clothy? He couldn’t have been in bed. His living quarters certainly didn’t look like a knockoff Van Gogh canvas.
Kururu must have either shifted or groaned audibly, because a voice piped up—
“Kururu-dono! Are you awake?”
“Nwhuh?!” The startled yellow Keronian bolted up, only for the back of his head to bump against metal with a soft thud. Now both perplexed and dizzy, he reached up to rub his head. As the roar of the engine slowed, he felt his body sway, tilting over the side of his mecha’s seat.
“Kururu-dono! Be careful!”
With razor-sharp reflexes, the figure sitting in front of Kururu twisted around slightly and stuck his arm out behind him to block the shaken sergeant major’s fall, then slowly propped Kururu up to balance his limp form between his backside and the metal face of the mech.
“Easy, now. Grab me.”
Kururu managed to settle into a straighter position, and his hands clumsily found their way to a pair of shoulders, which he clutched for dear life. Although his head throbbed, he was now conscious enough to identify who had lifted him, as the pre-dawn moonlight illuminated the fellow Keronian’s flowing silver headdress and bright blue skin.
“Dororo…?”
“Yes. It’s me.” Lance Corporal Dororo’s soft voice was just a notch louder than the humming of the hovering mecha, still stopped in place. “Are you all right? Thank goodness I found you when I did. I was really—”
Dororo was interrupted by a sudden gasp from Kururu, making the blue ninja jump a little, but just lightly enough to avoid bucking his platoon mate. He felt the pressure on his shoulders increase.
“Move.”
“P-pardon?” Dororo stammered.
“Lemme pilot.” Kururu attempted to separate his bottom from the makeshift pillion that was the hump of his vehicle, aiming to straddle the pilot’s seat. He was fully awake now, and only one thing was on his mind. “I gotta save him.”
“What? Save who?” Dororo asked. “I didn’t see any—whoa!”
Dororo felt something wrap tightly around both of his forearms. Looking down at the handlebars, he saw wires extending from Kururu’s headphones coiled around his upper limbs like boa constrictors, shaking with tension as they attempted to pry Dororo away from the controls. The assailant himself had one hand pressed down hard on Dororo’s head and one leg halfway in the air as he struggled to climb up and over the ninja’s body.
“I don’t owe you any answers,” Kururu growled. “Get the hell out of my way!”
Dororo was taken aback. He hadn’t expected Kururu to be so spry right upon awakening, let alone with uncharacteristic physical aggression.
“Please, Kururu-dono, settle down!” he pleaded as he tried to push back against the yellow Keronian’s advance. “At least tell me—”
“There’s no time, damn it!”
“Tell me you weren’t harmed in that explosion!”
Suddenly, Kururu’s movements ceased, though his wires remained around Dororo’s arms.
“…Explosion?”
Now that Kururu was no longer wrestling him, Dororo finally had an opening to speak. He cleared his throat.
“After you took off from the base, I returned home, but I was too worked up to sleep. When the sound disappeared again, I went into the woods to meditate…and then I felt the explosion.”
The gears in Kururu’s mind began to turn. It already happened?
The wires around Dororo’s arm loosened. “Go on,” Kururu prompted.
“The disturbance in the air was palpable, even from a great distance,” Dororo said. “The sound returned shortly after that. I figured you had something to do with it.”
Kururu squirmed uncomfortably. “So then?”
“Well, after some time passed, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. I didn’t want to bring Koyuki-dono into anything potentially dangerous, so I left to find you on my own…” Dororo sighed. “It took a while, but following the right current of heat led me to that sandy area near the collapsed tower.”
“And I was already out…?” There was a slight vibrato to Kururu’s voice. He was starting to remember the last moments before he woke up with a faceful of Dororo. They were not pleasant memories.
“You had collapsed near the Kururu Robo, yes. You were breathing normally and weren’t visibly injured, but I couldn’t wake you.” Dororo shifted his gaze anxiously. “I thought you’d be most comfortable if I took you back to your lab. I apologize for being so presumptuous, but I determined that using your mech was the most efficient way to get there.”
Kururu fell silent. He supposed the mental shock caused his body to give out and faint. He winced at the thought. How utterly pathetic.
More importantly, though, if his brain’s apparent self-defense mechanism of “check out until the problem goes away” didn’t work to end this nightmare, that meant it was all very real.
“…Tch.” The wires finally fell loose as Kururu retracted them into his headphones, then slowly slid back down into his makeshift seat. An awkward quiet persisted as Dororo shook out one arm at a time to restore his circulation. He waited for Kururu to continue, but it seemed that scoff was all he had to contribute.
“So…” Dororo said, drumming his fingers against the handlebars’ grips. “You are okay now, then? Physically, at least.”
“…Yeah,” Kururu muttered.
“That is a relief.” Dororo adjusted his mask before following up.
“And the sound problem…?”
“Fixed.”
Dororo smiled. “That’s good too. Now, I want you to rest again, but about this someone you needed to save—”
“Too late.” Kururu’s terse reply dripped with agitation.
“O-oh. I’m…I’m so sorry.” A pang went through Dororo’s heart. “I didn’t mean to keep you from—”
“It was over before you got there.” Kururu let his arms fall to his sides and hung his head low, his forehead lightly brushing up against Dororo’s shoulder blades. His voice became a low whimper. “Just hurry and get me home.”
Dororo swallowed heavily. While he didn’t know exactly who or what Kururu was talking about (though he had a guess), he could tell he would need to wait a bit to press.
“Okay,” Dororo whispered, revving up the mech. “Let’s go.”
And so the two rode off toward the Hinata house, with nothing but the humming of jets and a dark cloud of dread accompanying them the rest of the way.