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Through the ground, the walls, the air itself, a booming reverberated. Little chips of concrete vibrating upon the floor of the dockside warehouse, one of the out buildings Ouga had fought to. Near the sea cliff as it was, he could make out the sheer rock faces and wild greenery of the main island across a channel of choppy waves. From that murken roil of grey blue, something was emerging. A hand reached up over the cliff, four fingers too many stretching out in extended growths to hook onto nearby rocks and roots. Then it hauled itself up onto the ledge, wiggling shapes retracting back between familiar dark locks, and Ouga realized the sound thumping madly through the half-destroyed building was his own heartbeat.
His throat dry, it was all he could do to hold position as the figure approached, closing the distance between them until they could make out each other's faces in earnest. Until he could register if all was lost.
The visitor, not the stranger, never a stranger, had the most beautiful eyes. Dark and black and warm despite their depths. Even now, ringed in a new band of bright blue, courtesy of perhaps the unconventional first aid he’d received, they imparted on those tired features an air of fierceness he’d always found rather cool.
“Ouga, thank goodness you’re…”
And it was Tatsumi, his role model, his friend, his tag team partner. It was Tatsumi. Not a simulacrum composed of writhing shadows, not a mass of parasites inhabiting the hollow shell of his body. The next thing Ouga felt was the cold cement ground beneath his knees, vaguely registered he’d sunk to them, weak with sheer relief.
The alien Needle Boy told him the dangers of the gilbil evolutionary parasite mostly to get in his head no doubt, but one look at the research facility and his warnings about madness hadn’t seemed far fetched in the slightest. Brute forcing a solution and just assuming it would work on his injured friend the same way it’d worked on himself had been more than stupid, it’d been inane. He owed him an apology, more than that as he’d also put their family members at risk. Inverted shapes of the serpentine parasites writhed in his mind’s eye.
Then Tatsumi touched his face. Two fingers, four, digits tracing gently over his skin. And all the shouldn’t-haves, the what-ifs, didn’t seem so important anymore.
“You’re hurt.” The harsh bite to his voice had smoothed to time, and his words were mellower still as he spoke now, the pad of his thumb moving slowly over the scrape on his cheekbone Ouga didn’t even remember accruing.
“I’m fine,” he rasped, voice gruffer than he’d intended. “You— The others-...”
“They’re safe with the rest. Took shelter in the basement. I told them to stay put though if we take too long, I reckon they might start getting ideas about rescuing their favourite wrestling star.” Tatsumi smiled fondly at the thought of his little brother’s Shirokiba: The Hellhound shrine. “They’re safe. I’m good. Thank you, Ouga.”
“It should be the other way around.” Since they were kids it’d always been Tatsumi saving him. Even when he didn’t realize it himself. Still, he leaned into the palm cupping his face, feeling Tatsumi’s callouses, slight and localized where two fingers would draw back a string, against his skin. The warehouse floor dug into his knees, and even that level of respect did not seem enough. If it was for Tatsumi, Ouga could go lower, fight dirtier, ravage until his teeth were gritty with the marrow of their enemies.
As if hearing the thoughts pacing just beneath his skin, Tatsumi hummed, threading the tips of his fingers in ashen hair. Ouga watched as dark eyes closed, the tension in his friend’s shoulders loosening. With him kneeling and Tatsumi standing, they could’ve been half a lifetime in the past, Tatsumi holding him still after resolving the latest neighborhood bullying incident, taking a moment to collect himself, Ouga barely reaching to his chest.
His red eyes widened as something began to move in the corners of his vision. He didn’t dare stir and break Tatsumi’s trance, only watching in mild surprise as sanguine shapes began to apparate from his skin like smoke. As if in response, a similar phenomena in pale aqua stretched out shyly from Tatsumi. The parasites slowed their undulations as they entwined, momentarily satiated by tangential intersection.
When Tatsumi’s eyes slid open and he stepped back, the gilbils reluctantly retracted. “Don’t tell me I missed the party. Here I was looking forward to finally fighting with you. Even brought a new move to try.” He hooked a finger through the strap across his chest and for the first time Ouga registered the hunting rifle. Sleek and varnished, the weapon across Tatsumi’s back buzzed with latent energy, lines of pulsating blue accenting its body.
The blood rushing back to his legs as he stood up made them tingly. Ouga stretched, feeling Tatsumi’s eyes on him. Whether it was the parasites working their magic or something else, he felt fine, better than fine, ready to rumble. “Good thing I saved some for you.” He grinned, more himself with his canines bared.
Tatsumi smiled as he followed, the twin dots of his birthmark quirking up.
There were the rest of the horsemen to knockout, his family to find, the remaining island residents to rescue. And whatever came after, in that moment, Ouga felt he could take on the world.
Or at the very least, a couple aliens.