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“It's a bad idea,” Yukimi says with a grimace. Raikou's not sure if he is grimacing because of the bad idea, the pain that's no doubt digging its claws into him despite the Shatterdome's best medication, or something else entirely. Yukimi is an irritable person by nature, so it's hard to tell with him.
“What's a bad idea?” Raikou asks.
“You and your baby sister,” Yukimi grunts, rubbing his shoulder right above where the stump starts.
Automatically, Raikou says, “Raimei's eighteen now.” Then Yukimi's actual words register. “And how did you hear--”
“The gossip is all over the hospital wing and I've got nothing to do but listen.” He gives up on his shoulder and sinks back into the massive stack of pillows supporting him. “You should tell the Marshall no.”
Raikou chuckles. No one tells Marshall Hattori no. Yukimi just glares at him, so Raikou waves a hand. “Relax, it'll be fine. Our synchronization scores in the sim were incredible. Way better than you and me, actually. Or is that what this is about? You're jealous?”
“As if,” Yukimi growls. “And don't give me your joke-y, deflect-y bullshit. I'm serious. It's a fucking bad idea. The Marshall--” He breaks off as footsteps echo down the hall. They both glance at the open doorway in time to see a nurse go by, preoccupied with some chart. Once her footsteps fade in the opposite direction, Yukimi lowers his voice and continues. “All the Marshall cares about are his results. He doesn't care about the people he burns up. To him, the ends always justify his means.”
“The Marshall isn't going to burn me up,” Raikou insists. He tries to keep his tone light, but it is hard. Sometimes, Yukimi still thinks Raikou is the same rookie he took under his wing at the Jaeger Academy. “I know what I'm doing.”
Yukimi acts as if Raikou didn't speak. “The Marshall looks at his calculations, sees they're good, and that's it. He doesn't think about the human element because he doesn't care. You shouldn't even be--” He stops again, entirely of his own accord.
Raikou knows what is coming, knows it will hurt, but he still asks anyway. He deserves far worse. “I shouldn't even be what?”
Yukimi scowls at him, like he knows Raikou is chasing after punishment. Still, he answers him. “You shouldn't even be in the field,” Yukimi says, each word firm, hard. “And you know it.”
Raikou does. It stings, because if he can't be in the field, then what good is he for? But it's true. The proof of it is obvious in its absence, the emptiness protruding from Yukimi's marred shoulder that Raikou tries hard not to stare at whenever he visits Yukimi here.
Still, it's not like Raikou actually has a choice. White Beast has held the line without him and Yukimi these last couple of weeks, but the lull in Kaiju attacks won't last long. If the prediction from K-Science is right-- and Yoite's math is rarely wrong-- then a double event is coming through the pipes and fast. They can't rely on help from Hong Kong or Sydney or anyone else since they have their own breaches to guard. Aside from Shijima and Kouichi, Raikou is the only experienced pilot in the Shatterdome cleared for active duty. And the only pilots drift-compatible with him are the man lying in the hospital bed before him and his kid sister.
Raikou can't fault Marshall Hattori's calculations. It's only simple math.
“It'll be fine,” Raikou says. His jaw is rigid with tension, but he manages to make himself smile.
=====
“He doesn't blame you, you know. For his arm.”
Raikou glances Kouichi. They're waiting together for their partners before heading to a routine pre-mission meeting-- routine for everyone except Raimei since this will be here first. They've been standing a while, silent. Shijima's lateness is no surprise, since the only schedule she adheres to is her own. Raikou expected different from Raimei though. Perhaps she is nervous, though she would deny it up and down.
“Did he tell you that?” Raikou asks, shifting sideways so he can see the older pilot better.
Kouichi's mouth twitches at the corner, amused. “No. But Yukimi is a fair person. He couldn't blame you for what ultimately amounts to an accident.”
It's true, Raikou knows. Yukimi doesn't waste energy on unjustified grudges. And if he was truly angry with Raikou, he wouldn't be quiet and passive-aggressive about it. Still, the fact that Yukimi doesn't blame him doesn't make Raikou feel any better.
“I should've been in control,” Raikou murmurs, but he doesn't otherwise protest. When either part of White Beast speaks, it is always in your best interest to listen. The two of them, Kouichi and Shijima, are half-legend, half-mystery. They have been at the Shatterdome longer than anyone present can remember-- before Marshall Hattori, before Marshall Fuuma, even. Rumors abound about where they came from, what they did before the Kaiju changed everything, but Raikou doesn't believe any of it. Besides, what does their past matter? With decades of service in their records, the pair of them are by far the oldest Jaeger pilots on active duty and show no sign of stopping.
To be frank, Raikou is a little terrified of both of them, even though he's worked with them for years now. There's something wild in their eyes that unnerves him. He tries not to let it show. It's easier with Kouichi. He's got a fierceness to his stare that makes you feel like you're face to face with a massive bird of prey, but it's tempered by his good humor and wisdom. When Shijima locks eyes with you, you feel like you've been judged and found severely lacking.
“Is control going to be any easier with your sister?” Kouichi asks. Raikou opens his mouth, but Kouichi cuts him off. “I know you two are highly drift compatible, I've seen the scores. But if you found it hard to keep a lock on your memories with Yukimi, I doubt it'll be any easier while sharing headspace with your sister.”
He says it kindly, but Raikou still feels cut down. He breaks away from Kouichi's stare, grits his teeth. “We'll make it work,” he insists. “We have to.”
“Can't argue with that,” Kouichi says, then cranes his neck around just in time to see Shijima enter the platform, Raimei on her heels.
=====
It's just a test run, but it is their first time in the Jaeger together. The Jaeger will have to be renamed-- it seems wrong to keep the same name it had when Raikou and Yukimi piloted it together. Besides, it had to be rebuilt so much after the Kaiju tore it apart that a new name seems fitting for its rebirth.
He will have to talk to his sister about it.
Raimei fiddles with her helmet, all her motions just a touch too quick, frantic. It could be nerves, but knowing Raimei it's just as likely that she's excited. Ever since she was a little kid, Raimei always loved games, sports, fights, anything that got the blood pumping. She dived into any challenge like a force of nature.
He assumes she is still the same. Raikou doesn't know her as well as he should any more, not since he entered the academy and left her alone to deal with the aftermath of their family's demise.
Raimei glance up from her helmet and across the platform to where Shijima is watching them, her strange golden eyes glinting in the distance. “Did Kouichi say something to you too?” Raimei asks suddenly.
“What?”
“Shijima told me that she didn't want to fight with us because we're a tragedy waiting to happen,” she says, blunt.
Raikou hesitates. If Raimei is feeling confident about this test run, he doesn't want to ruin that. But that moment of silence is all Raimei needs to scowl.
“Kazuho told me too,” Raimei adds. She huffs, then clarifies, “Well, she said that's what her brother thought, but I could tell she agreed with him. Nobody thinks we can do this.”
“Do you think we can?” Raikou asks.
“We have to, don't we? Everyone is counting on us.” With that, she finally crammed her helmet over her head.
Raikou put his own helmet on to conceal his small smile. The drift compatibility scores didn't lie.
=====
The taste of smoke in his mouth is all too familiar. He chokes on it, coughs until his breath becomes ragged. Even still, he can smell the blood, the cooking flesh. His home burns down around him and his family burns with it.
It's not real, he reminds himself. This isn't real, it already happened, you have to snap out of it.
Then he hears Raimei scream and Raikou forces his eyes open.
He just barely makes her out through all the smoke and tears stinging his eyes. She's hunched over their mother, begging her to get up and trying to drag her limp body away from the encroaching blaze and-- this isn't right. Raikou's never seen this before.
He's only just figured out what going on when he sees himself stumble into the room.
“Raimei!” the other Raikou yells. He's fifteen, eyes wild and shirtfront splattered with their uncle's blood. “Raimei, we have to get out now!”
Raikou forces himself to take a deep breath. He shivers when it runs through him cool and completely free of smoke. His eyes clear and he makes his way towards the spot where his sister is still frozen. She doesn't react when he puts his hand on her shoulder. “Raimei, it's just a memory. It's your memory.”
“Come on!” Raikou's younger self coughs into the crook of his elbow, then hauls Raimei onto her feet and away from their mother. “We're leaving— now!”
Raimei comes alive again and tries uselessly to escape her brother's grip even as the roof is consumed by the fire and begins to cave in. “But Mo—”
“She's dead! Leave her!”
“It's going to be okay,” Raikou tells Raimei. Tells both of them, maybe. “You're going to live and you're going to get older and you're never going to be this powerless ever again.”
She's crying, thrashing in her brother's arms as he hauls her up and clenches her against his bloody chest. As he carries her out, Raimei screams again and their home goes dark all around them.
=====
Raikou wakes up in the hospital wing, the taste of blood in his mouth. When he tries sits up, Shijima is there to push him back.
“Down,” she says. “You had a seizure. Neural overload.”
“Raimei?” Raikou asks. His tongue throbs; he must've bitten it. He cranes his neck, but he can't see much of the room with Shijima keeping him pressed to the pillows. For such a small person, her strength is near impossible to break.
“Her too. She's fine, but it was her first so the doctors are checking her over anyway.”
Raikou's head pounds in protest at every sound that comes from Shijima's mouth. He covers his eyes with an arm so that he at least won't have to look up into the hospital wing's glaring lights. “What are you doing here?”
“Kouichi's talking to the Marshall,” Shijima answers. She finally lets go of Raikou's shoulders, steps back. “And I don't mind being the bearer of bad news.”
It takes Raikou a moment to process that-- as well as what exactly happened before he blacked out. When his brain finally works through it, he can't help the double dose of relief and guilt that rushes through him. "We're being pulled?"
"Yep. Not even the Marshall is fool enough to clear you two for the field."
Raikou pulls his arm away to get a look at Shijima. Her face is too schooled for him to tell if she's angry or not, if she's scared. But something glints in her steely eyes and Raikou has a bad feeling he knows what it is. "Did K-Science make an update?"
"Tomorrow," Shijima says. "Probably in the evening, maybe in the afternoon."
"Double event?"
"Double event."
He almost apologizes, but Shijima won't be interested in it. Instead, he sits up, stands. Shijima lets him this time, even points him in the right direction. He goes to be with his sister. At this point, there's nothing else he can do. At this point, there's nothing else he wants to do.