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sakon76In the fine tradition of Charmurai writers, in honor of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hoshikage's birthday, a birthday present fanfic for her. And as Ultraman Moebius is our flavor of the moment, so shall it be. Spoilers for episode 30.
In many ways, Konomi thought, it really was the hardest on Mirai. Being Ultraman, he of course fought the hardest against the monsters—not just with guns and planes and technology the way the rest of GUYS did, but physically, taking on twenty-story tall monsters hand-to-hand. He got hurt a lot doing it, which meant his propensity toward ending up in the infirmary even before they'd all known he was Moebius suddenly made a lot more sense. Fortunately, she thought, he healed fast. But the damage he took didn't slow him down nearly as much as the way he took defending the Earth as a sacred charge.
Not that it wasn't a sacred charge, she thought, thinking of the children at the Miyama nursery school. Her blood ran cold at the thought of a monster stepping on that building, crushing those within it... well, that was why she was in GUYS, wasn't it? To keep that kind of thing from happening. And Mirai must feel the same way. She remembered his smile from the times he went to help her teach, and how good he'd become with the children. He knew what they were protecting.
No, what hit Mirai the hardest was his own limitations. Whenever he fell short of being able to protect the Earth from the monsters, it hurt him more than anything. She thought that Moebius must be very young for an Ultra, younger even than he was as Hibino Mirai, the way he'd always taken things so hard. But at least Ryuu was usually able to chevvy him out of depression or despair, she thought cheerfully. Somehow their team leader seemed to know exactly what Mirai needed, whether it was encouragement or a good chastisement. And, really, she thought the two of them adored one another. She'd never really had a best friend, though she was growing closer to Marina, and so envied the two of them that closeness.
And they were close. She knew this beyond doubt because Mirai had told, or at least shown, Ryuu what he was when he hadn't given the rest of them any explanation. They'd only found out because Ryuu had told Mirai to go fight Imparaizer in front of the rest of the crew. And she'd suddenly focused on the red-and-gold decoration on the sleeve of Mirai's shirt, realizing that it wasn't a decoration, that it was Moebius' wrist brace.... She'd almost thought she'd die of astonishment and wonder as so many things about Mirai suddenly made more sense. And, really, it thrilled her as well. To know that Ultraman wasn't just this great alien hero who had come to save them from the monsters, but a person... a good person, who cared for his friends and smiled and laughed with them, who fought for the Earth even when he wasn't using his powers, someone who mended arguments and learned how to fold origami and helped teach children....
He was just exactly like she'd want someone like him to be, Konomi decided. And she was really glad to be his friend, and to have him as hers. Because while she still didn't think she was very brave, she knew she was making a difference in the world, one perhaps even greater than working with the children at Miyama Preschool. And he'd been the one to lead her down this path, introducing her to Marina and George, Teppei and Ryuu, the Captain, and others. She was really glad to have met them all and been given the chance she had to help defend the Earth. It was something most people never got a chance to do, and it was just maybe the most important thing she might ever do with her life, being GUYS tech support and Miklas' tamer and one of Ultraman's friends.
*
If she'd ever bothered to think, Marina knew, she probably would have been the least surprised when Mirai's carefully crafted illusion had finally crumbled away. She'd known there was something weird about him from the beginning, but... well, when they'd been told he'd grown up in space, she'd been willing to chalk everything up to that. She hadn't bothered to think about why he might have sounded just the same as Ban Hiroto. She hadn't considered that anyplace Mirai had ended up alone, whether in the Ultra Zone or in the village she'd lived in seven years ago, Ultraman had somehow shown up to fight. And she'd willingly accepted his and Captain Sakomizu's excuses for where Mirai disappeared to in the middle of battles.
No, Marina realized, her shock was all her own fault. The clues had been there, she just hadn't bothered to add them up. None of them had. As much as anything, she knew she lived by her instincts. How hard to push a bike, how fast to run, where the flow of the wind would carry a plane... she'd done well enough in school, but there was a reason she was in the GunPhoenix on missions instead of back at the Phoenix Nest analyzing critical data like Teppei and Konomi. She just wasn't smart enough in that way.
Still, did it really matter in the end? Human like the rest of them or Ultraman, Mirai was Mirai regardless. Innocent but not childish, and—no, she couldn't say uncomplicated, not any more—generous of heart, curious, wanting things for his friends but seemingly never for himself. Really, when it came down to it, he was very much like Marina thought she'd want an Ultraman to be. Not that Tarou hadn't been impressive, or Hikari either, but she hadn't known them. Crew GUYS had fought along Moebius for months before Imparaizer, and gotten a feeling of kinship, of friendship even though the giant alien defender hadn't exchanged a word with them. Or so they'd thought.
A smile cracked her lips.
Maybe that was why Mirai hadn't told them, she thought. Would they have reacted the same at all to him if they'd known he was a powerful alien? And, really, he hadn't lied much to them. Even the Assistant Inspector's saying that he'd grown up in space... well, he sort of had. And so he'd been able to make friends. It must be pretty lonely, being the only one of his kind on Earth (well, there'd been the Ultra Brothers in Kobe, months ago, and Hikari, and Tarou... still, that was slim pickings, she thought, for friendship). No wonder he'd been so happy, bringing their crew together, making such a disparate group work as a unit.
Ultraman had wanted friends, she thought with a mingled sense of amusement and wonder. And she was one of the ones he'd picked.
*
If he ever had grandchildren, Teppei thought, he'd have stories to pass down to them. How We Defeated Birdon. The Time I Went To The Ultra Zone. The Morning Ultraman Made Great-Grandma And Me Curry. Better yet, he'd have evidence backing them up. Well, not the curry maybe. But definitely the rest.
He dangled the good-luck charm Mirai had made and given him, eyes watching it spin. It looked almost like a claw. He wondered if it was supposed to be any particular monster's. He should research it, he thought. Or maybe just ask Mirai directly.
It somehow wasn't surprising that Mirai was Moebius. Astonishing, maybe, because Teppei hadn't really thought about what Ultramen did during the time when they weren't fighting monsters. It made sense, given that they had always seemed to be akin to human sensibilities, that they'd want to have lives, though. Be people. Do things. Still, the odds of him knowing one... even after he'd been dragged into Crew GUYS....
It was in retrospect painfully obvious, Teppei admitted, and felt stupid for having missed it. He'd been having such a good time, though, with new friends, getting a chance to help fight the monsters he'd spent his life in a worshipful study of that he hadn't bothered to look around and think. Some analyist he was, he thought ruefully. Still, all he could do was try to do better in the future.
It filled him with a warm glow, though, that he was one of the people one of the legendary Ultramen had chosen to make up his support team, even though Mirai probably didn't think about it like that. And he knew why, too; the moment that had made Mirai choose all of them (except Ryuu, who was a different story and hadn't been there). He remembered looking around, at all the screaming people fleeing Dinozaur, and seeing a cute teacher fighting a policeman, protesting that she had to go back and rescue the little ones who'd been left behind. And he'd hesitated, wanting to go help her, but there'd been no way past the police and it was probably stupid and suicidal. Dinozaur was getting closer... but then Ikaruga George, who he thought he'd recognized earlier in his family's hospital, had done his shooting star shoot, distracting the officer, and five of them had made a break for it to go rescue children. Four strangers, willing to risk their lives for a good cause... and one Ultraman in human guise. It didn't even really matter that Konomi's "little ones" had turned out to be rabbits. All that mattered was that they'd gone when they'd been needed.
Teppei had never been more grateful in his life than he was for that one decision, because it had changed everything. There had been a future planned out for him from the moment he'd been born: follow on in his family's footsteps, become a doctor, inherit the hospital, marry a good woman from a good family, repeat the cycle in the next generation. But even if it was only for a little bit, he'd broken free. Fighting Insectus to protect the hospital he'd shown his parents that the path he was taking, even if not the one he'd originally planned, was a good one and that his geekish interests hadn't been that stupid after all. And fighting to protect his family's legacy, he'd realized that it wasn't just his family's impetus binding him—he really did want to become a doctor and save lives. That was what he was in GUYS to do, after all. And if one way was more important than the other right now, it didn't mean that the other wasn't important to him too.
And Mirai wanted him to someday become an excellent doctor as well....
How could Teppei let down someone who cared so much for him, for all of humanity, and threw himself ceaselessly into the breach for their sakes?
And after all, he thought, if Mirai and Ryuu kept ending up in the infirmary at the current rate for the rest of their lives, they'd need him as a doctor.
*
When George had been a child, he'd wanted, as all boys his age did, to be Ultraman. To be big and strong, the defender of the Earth who got to fight the rampaging monster and save the day. He'd known later that it was a childish desire and treated it almost as a joke in some of his magazine interviews, feeling ashamed... not of the desire, he realized now, but of how he'd abandoned it along the way into a selfish stardom. He loved soccer, adored it, really, but somehow... it had stopped making him happy a long time ago. He'd been at the top, a celebrity and one of the best in his field, but inside he'd been empty. There had been no one standing with him, and he hadn't been doing good for anyone or anything. He hadn't been stupid, though, and had paid attention to what he'd seen, to those athletes who destroyed their lives, their bodies, and their chances, partying and getting into drugs or alcohol to fill the voids inside of themselves. Instead of risking that he'd worked himself harder, trying to lose everything into the game. It hadn't mattered that he was alone and empty. It hadn't.
Except it had.
Knowing now, as a friend, who Ultraman was, what he was, George knew his childhood dream had lacked full information. There was no way he was strong enough to take on the burdens Mirai did, the responsibility. If he fell, if he failed in battle... humanity was lost. George wouldn't be able to handle being that final line of responsibility. But being in GUYS, doing as much as he could against the monsters, being able to use, for the first time, the weird clarity of sight that had cursed him for his whole life... it filled up the emptiness. And standing around him was a real team, the way the teams in the Spain League had never seemed to be. Ryuu, who fought the monsters like he'd been born to it; Konomi, who was cute and sweet and loved even some of the monsters; Teppei, whose information on their enemies seemed endless; Marina, whose hearing was as keen as George's sight but hadn't seemed to suffer for it; and Mirai, who had hidden the biggest secret in the world from all of them for the half-year and more they'd known him.
This was his team. This was his Crew. And when George returned to the world of pro soccer, as he knew he would, they would be the ones he'd be playing for. His family. His friends.
*
Mirai was an idiot, Ryuu thought. But he was also their idiot and Ryuu's best friend, which made for a lot of mitigating circumstances. And, hell, the alien thing had to weigh in there somewhere too. But still—thinking the fact that he was Ultraman would have made any difference? Always being polite and saying "thank you" when he was the one they should thank? Not letting anyone help him with the burdens he shouldered? First-class idiot.
It really was ironic that the very first words Mirai had said to him were "Don't rely on other people." Ryuu had been just been happy at that point to find that there was someone else who knew the precepts passed down by that Ultraman from so long ago. Now, of course, he knew that Mirai had learned them from the source. And in thinking about it, he suspected that was part of the reason why some of Mirai's ideas about Earth were so dippy. Like going out on a picnic date with your best friend—what the hell kind of way to say goodbye was that?
It wasn't that Mirai didn't try to understand Japanese culture, though. He tried harder than anyone Ryuu had ever seen, going through books and magazines at a breakneck pace, watching television and listening to music with an intensity that didn't speak of deprivation the way Ryuu had once thought, but rather of a burning need to fit in and understand this adopted culture. Mirai was like a sponge, soaking it all up and sometimes recombining it in rather weird ways. Not that Japanese culture didn't have its own inherent idiosyncrasies that made Ryuu twitch thinking of what Mirai must make of them. Things ranging from Takarazuka shows to blowfish sushi to adult manga snagged at his mind, making him grimace. There really was a lot that was ephemeral, Ryuu thought, and some of it possibly quite stupid. But still, that was what they were fighting to protect: people's ability to smile at crossdressing performers, at eating what they knew to be poison, at silly things that were really quite perverse in some ways.
And Mirai, the stupid idiot, was not allowed to die in that fight. And if he ever got it into his head again that he would and should, Ryuu intended to whack him a good one. Because just as Captain Serizawa had been the heart and head of the old GUYS Crew, Mirai was the heart of this new one. Not the head, though; somehow that job seemed to have fallen to Ryuu. Which... actually made a lot of sense. He had the most experience in GUYS, and while Mirai had still been trying to keep his identity secret, they couldn't have had a team leader who disappeared in the middle of battles. And to be honest, he thought he was better at it than Mirai would be. For all his power, Mirai was still pretty inexperienced in a lot of things.
Like saying goodbye.
Ryuu didn't like thinking about that. Mirai, he knew, would have just up and left Earth as he'd been supposed to do, as he'd been planning to do, if Imparaizer hadn't turned up. Giving them each just one day of precious memories to stand and explain that he hadn't really wanted to leave... but no reason as to why he had to. Only, Imparaizer had turned up ahead of Ultraman Tarou and Mirai hadn't just been able to leave Earth undefended and he hadn't allowed Mirai to run off, yelling stupidly at him about duty when Mirai was the one who knew duty better than the rest of them put together, and Mirai had turned and thanked him for everything and asked Ryuu to watch his last battle.... In retrospect, sitting by Mirai's bed in the infirmary, Ryuu had put things together. That had been Mirai saying goodbye, knowing he was going to die. Fighting even though he knew he would. Wanting, no, needing Ryuu to understand who—and what—he really was.
It had only been luck that Mirai hadn't died. And he was not allowed to pull that kind of stunt ever again. No one on Ryuu's crew was allowed to die. Especially not Mirai.
Even if he was an idiot.
*
Regret had melted through him as Ryuu had spoken, words in front of everyone else that he'd never wanted to say, letting them know... changing him in their view away from being someone just like them. Showing Ryuu had been one thing, it had been a final farewell and an expression of everything in his heart that he couldn't say then, still couldn't, but everyone else... he hadn't known if they would understand. If everything he'd done would outweigh the lies he'd told in order to stay in their company. But it had been too late, and the words had been said and Teppei and Konomi had realized the significance of the brace on his arm. But more importantly, Ryuu had had faith in him. Had faith that Mirai could fight Imparaizer and not die, would be allowed to stay if he proved himself.
No one had ever had that kind of faith in Mirai before. Among the Ultra, he was only a child, one to be given the easy missions well within his abilities, to be protected, to be ordered back home to train more for the coming fight, leaving behind the first real friends he'd made....
He hadn't been able to let down those friends.
He hadn't been able to let down Ryuu.
And so he'd transformed and fought alongside his teacher and then, protecting his human friends from Imparaizer's shots, nearly died again. But they'd reminded him of everything he had to live for in their company and he'd promised Ryuu....
So he forced away the pain, recklessly shoving the damage elsewhere, knowing that he'd pay for it later, and pulled forth the burning sense of these are my friends and this is their planet and I will not let you destroy it, shaping it into a new mode, a new power, a destruction meant to protect....
Somehow he'd won, and Ryuu had asked Master Tarou to let him stay. And Master Tarou had thought their team together could handle what was yet to come. The taste of that approval had been so sweet, knowing that for the first time he was being viewed and judged as an adult, and had won his teacher's respect.
Mirai thought nothing could have ruined his mood after that. The fact that the rest of Crew GUYS hadn't been angry with him, had forgiven the lies, only made everything even better. And now there was no more secret to keep from them.... The crown to the day had been the new comm Ryuu had given him, painted with the flames that matched Ryuu's own, matched the flames Mirai had painted on all the good luck charms he'd given to everyone. It said better than words could have that Ryuu wasn't angry at him at all, had forgiven everything, was still his best friend.
In the end, Ryuu was right, he decided, admiring the new comm unit as they all walked back to base. Even though it was humanity and the Earth in large that they all fought for, it was a few faces in specific that hovered, smiling and laughing, in his mind's eye.
They were his friends. His family. His home.
And he would protect them.
hoshikage's birthday, a birthday present fanfic for her. And as Ultraman Moebius is our flavor of the moment, so shall it be. Spoilers for episode 30.In many ways, Konomi thought, it really was the hardest on Mirai. Being Ultraman, he of course fought the hardest against the monsters—not just with guns and planes and technology the way the rest of GUYS did, but physically, taking on twenty-story tall monsters hand-to-hand. He got hurt a lot doing it, which meant his propensity toward ending up in the infirmary even before they'd all known he was Moebius suddenly made a lot more sense. Fortunately, she thought, he healed fast. But the damage he took didn't slow him down nearly as much as the way he took defending the Earth as a sacred charge.
Not that it wasn't a sacred charge, she thought, thinking of the children at the Miyama nursery school. Her blood ran cold at the thought of a monster stepping on that building, crushing those within it... well, that was why she was in GUYS, wasn't it? To keep that kind of thing from happening. And Mirai must feel the same way. She remembered his smile from the times he went to help her teach, and how good he'd become with the children. He knew what they were protecting.
No, what hit Mirai the hardest was his own limitations. Whenever he fell short of being able to protect the Earth from the monsters, it hurt him more than anything. She thought that Moebius must be very young for an Ultra, younger even than he was as Hibino Mirai, the way he'd always taken things so hard. But at least Ryuu was usually able to chevvy him out of depression or despair, she thought cheerfully. Somehow their team leader seemed to know exactly what Mirai needed, whether it was encouragement or a good chastisement. And, really, she thought the two of them adored one another. She'd never really had a best friend, though she was growing closer to Marina, and so envied the two of them that closeness.
And they were close. She knew this beyond doubt because Mirai had told, or at least shown, Ryuu what he was when he hadn't given the rest of them any explanation. They'd only found out because Ryuu had told Mirai to go fight Imparaizer in front of the rest of the crew. And she'd suddenly focused on the red-and-gold decoration on the sleeve of Mirai's shirt, realizing that it wasn't a decoration, that it was Moebius' wrist brace.... She'd almost thought she'd die of astonishment and wonder as so many things about Mirai suddenly made more sense. And, really, it thrilled her as well. To know that Ultraman wasn't just this great alien hero who had come to save them from the monsters, but a person... a good person, who cared for his friends and smiled and laughed with them, who fought for the Earth even when he wasn't using his powers, someone who mended arguments and learned how to fold origami and helped teach children....
He was just exactly like she'd want someone like him to be, Konomi decided. And she was really glad to be his friend, and to have him as hers. Because while she still didn't think she was very brave, she knew she was making a difference in the world, one perhaps even greater than working with the children at Miyama Preschool. And he'd been the one to lead her down this path, introducing her to Marina and George, Teppei and Ryuu, the Captain, and others. She was really glad to have met them all and been given the chance she had to help defend the Earth. It was something most people never got a chance to do, and it was just maybe the most important thing she might ever do with her life, being GUYS tech support and Miklas' tamer and one of Ultraman's friends.
If she'd ever bothered to think, Marina knew, she probably would have been the least surprised when Mirai's carefully crafted illusion had finally crumbled away. She'd known there was something weird about him from the beginning, but... well, when they'd been told he'd grown up in space, she'd been willing to chalk everything up to that. She hadn't bothered to think about why he might have sounded just the same as Ban Hiroto. She hadn't considered that anyplace Mirai had ended up alone, whether in the Ultra Zone or in the village she'd lived in seven years ago, Ultraman had somehow shown up to fight. And she'd willingly accepted his and Captain Sakomizu's excuses for where Mirai disappeared to in the middle of battles.
No, Marina realized, her shock was all her own fault. The clues had been there, she just hadn't bothered to add them up. None of them had. As much as anything, she knew she lived by her instincts. How hard to push a bike, how fast to run, where the flow of the wind would carry a plane... she'd done well enough in school, but there was a reason she was in the GunPhoenix on missions instead of back at the Phoenix Nest analyzing critical data like Teppei and Konomi. She just wasn't smart enough in that way.
Still, did it really matter in the end? Human like the rest of them or Ultraman, Mirai was Mirai regardless. Innocent but not childish, and—no, she couldn't say uncomplicated, not any more—generous of heart, curious, wanting things for his friends but seemingly never for himself. Really, when it came down to it, he was very much like Marina thought she'd want an Ultraman to be. Not that Tarou hadn't been impressive, or Hikari either, but she hadn't known them. Crew GUYS had fought along Moebius for months before Imparaizer, and gotten a feeling of kinship, of friendship even though the giant alien defender hadn't exchanged a word with them. Or so they'd thought.
A smile cracked her lips.
Maybe that was why Mirai hadn't told them, she thought. Would they have reacted the same at all to him if they'd known he was a powerful alien? And, really, he hadn't lied much to them. Even the Assistant Inspector's saying that he'd grown up in space... well, he sort of had. And so he'd been able to make friends. It must be pretty lonely, being the only one of his kind on Earth (well, there'd been the Ultra Brothers in Kobe, months ago, and Hikari, and Tarou... still, that was slim pickings, she thought, for friendship). No wonder he'd been so happy, bringing their crew together, making such a disparate group work as a unit.
Ultraman had wanted friends, she thought with a mingled sense of amusement and wonder. And she was one of the ones he'd picked.
If he ever had grandchildren, Teppei thought, he'd have stories to pass down to them. How We Defeated Birdon. The Time I Went To The Ultra Zone. The Morning Ultraman Made Great-Grandma And Me Curry. Better yet, he'd have evidence backing them up. Well, not the curry maybe. But definitely the rest.
He dangled the good-luck charm Mirai had made and given him, eyes watching it spin. It looked almost like a claw. He wondered if it was supposed to be any particular monster's. He should research it, he thought. Or maybe just ask Mirai directly.
It somehow wasn't surprising that Mirai was Moebius. Astonishing, maybe, because Teppei hadn't really thought about what Ultramen did during the time when they weren't fighting monsters. It made sense, given that they had always seemed to be akin to human sensibilities, that they'd want to have lives, though. Be people. Do things. Still, the odds of him knowing one... even after he'd been dragged into Crew GUYS....
It was in retrospect painfully obvious, Teppei admitted, and felt stupid for having missed it. He'd been having such a good time, though, with new friends, getting a chance to help fight the monsters he'd spent his life in a worshipful study of that he hadn't bothered to look around and think. Some analyist he was, he thought ruefully. Still, all he could do was try to do better in the future.
It filled him with a warm glow, though, that he was one of the people one of the legendary Ultramen had chosen to make up his support team, even though Mirai probably didn't think about it like that. And he knew why, too; the moment that had made Mirai choose all of them (except Ryuu, who was a different story and hadn't been there). He remembered looking around, at all the screaming people fleeing Dinozaur, and seeing a cute teacher fighting a policeman, protesting that she had to go back and rescue the little ones who'd been left behind. And he'd hesitated, wanting to go help her, but there'd been no way past the police and it was probably stupid and suicidal. Dinozaur was getting closer... but then Ikaruga George, who he thought he'd recognized earlier in his family's hospital, had done his shooting star shoot, distracting the officer, and five of them had made a break for it to go rescue children. Four strangers, willing to risk their lives for a good cause... and one Ultraman in human guise. It didn't even really matter that Konomi's "little ones" had turned out to be rabbits. All that mattered was that they'd gone when they'd been needed.
Teppei had never been more grateful in his life than he was for that one decision, because it had changed everything. There had been a future planned out for him from the moment he'd been born: follow on in his family's footsteps, become a doctor, inherit the hospital, marry a good woman from a good family, repeat the cycle in the next generation. But even if it was only for a little bit, he'd broken free. Fighting Insectus to protect the hospital he'd shown his parents that the path he was taking, even if not the one he'd originally planned, was a good one and that his geekish interests hadn't been that stupid after all. And fighting to protect his family's legacy, he'd realized that it wasn't just his family's impetus binding him—he really did want to become a doctor and save lives. That was what he was in GUYS to do, after all. And if one way was more important than the other right now, it didn't mean that the other wasn't important to him too.
And Mirai wanted him to someday become an excellent doctor as well....
How could Teppei let down someone who cared so much for him, for all of humanity, and threw himself ceaselessly into the breach for their sakes?
And after all, he thought, if Mirai and Ryuu kept ending up in the infirmary at the current rate for the rest of their lives, they'd need him as a doctor.
When George had been a child, he'd wanted, as all boys his age did, to be Ultraman. To be big and strong, the defender of the Earth who got to fight the rampaging monster and save the day. He'd known later that it was a childish desire and treated it almost as a joke in some of his magazine interviews, feeling ashamed... not of the desire, he realized now, but of how he'd abandoned it along the way into a selfish stardom. He loved soccer, adored it, really, but somehow... it had stopped making him happy a long time ago. He'd been at the top, a celebrity and one of the best in his field, but inside he'd been empty. There had been no one standing with him, and he hadn't been doing good for anyone or anything. He hadn't been stupid, though, and had paid attention to what he'd seen, to those athletes who destroyed their lives, their bodies, and their chances, partying and getting into drugs or alcohol to fill the voids inside of themselves. Instead of risking that he'd worked himself harder, trying to lose everything into the game. It hadn't mattered that he was alone and empty. It hadn't.
Except it had.
Knowing now, as a friend, who Ultraman was, what he was, George knew his childhood dream had lacked full information. There was no way he was strong enough to take on the burdens Mirai did, the responsibility. If he fell, if he failed in battle... humanity was lost. George wouldn't be able to handle being that final line of responsibility. But being in GUYS, doing as much as he could against the monsters, being able to use, for the first time, the weird clarity of sight that had cursed him for his whole life... it filled up the emptiness. And standing around him was a real team, the way the teams in the Spain League had never seemed to be. Ryuu, who fought the monsters like he'd been born to it; Konomi, who was cute and sweet and loved even some of the monsters; Teppei, whose information on their enemies seemed endless; Marina, whose hearing was as keen as George's sight but hadn't seemed to suffer for it; and Mirai, who had hidden the biggest secret in the world from all of them for the half-year and more they'd known him.
This was his team. This was his Crew. And when George returned to the world of pro soccer, as he knew he would, they would be the ones he'd be playing for. His family. His friends.
Mirai was an idiot, Ryuu thought. But he was also their idiot and Ryuu's best friend, which made for a lot of mitigating circumstances. And, hell, the alien thing had to weigh in there somewhere too. But still—thinking the fact that he was Ultraman would have made any difference? Always being polite and saying "thank you" when he was the one they should thank? Not letting anyone help him with the burdens he shouldered? First-class idiot.
It really was ironic that the very first words Mirai had said to him were "Don't rely on other people." Ryuu had been just been happy at that point to find that there was someone else who knew the precepts passed down by that Ultraman from so long ago. Now, of course, he knew that Mirai had learned them from the source. And in thinking about it, he suspected that was part of the reason why some of Mirai's ideas about Earth were so dippy. Like going out on a picnic date with your best friend—what the hell kind of way to say goodbye was that?
It wasn't that Mirai didn't try to understand Japanese culture, though. He tried harder than anyone Ryuu had ever seen, going through books and magazines at a breakneck pace, watching television and listening to music with an intensity that didn't speak of deprivation the way Ryuu had once thought, but rather of a burning need to fit in and understand this adopted culture. Mirai was like a sponge, soaking it all up and sometimes recombining it in rather weird ways. Not that Japanese culture didn't have its own inherent idiosyncrasies that made Ryuu twitch thinking of what Mirai must make of them. Things ranging from Takarazuka shows to blowfish sushi to adult manga snagged at his mind, making him grimace. There really was a lot that was ephemeral, Ryuu thought, and some of it possibly quite stupid. But still, that was what they were fighting to protect: people's ability to smile at crossdressing performers, at eating what they knew to be poison, at silly things that were really quite perverse in some ways.
And Mirai, the stupid idiot, was not allowed to die in that fight. And if he ever got it into his head again that he would and should, Ryuu intended to whack him a good one. Because just as Captain Serizawa had been the heart and head of the old GUYS Crew, Mirai was the heart of this new one. Not the head, though; somehow that job seemed to have fallen to Ryuu. Which... actually made a lot of sense. He had the most experience in GUYS, and while Mirai had still been trying to keep his identity secret, they couldn't have had a team leader who disappeared in the middle of battles. And to be honest, he thought he was better at it than Mirai would be. For all his power, Mirai was still pretty inexperienced in a lot of things.
Like saying goodbye.
Ryuu didn't like thinking about that. Mirai, he knew, would have just up and left Earth as he'd been supposed to do, as he'd been planning to do, if Imparaizer hadn't turned up. Giving them each just one day of precious memories to stand and explain that he hadn't really wanted to leave... but no reason as to why he had to. Only, Imparaizer had turned up ahead of Ultraman Tarou and Mirai hadn't just been able to leave Earth undefended and he hadn't allowed Mirai to run off, yelling stupidly at him about duty when Mirai was the one who knew duty better than the rest of them put together, and Mirai had turned and thanked him for everything and asked Ryuu to watch his last battle.... In retrospect, sitting by Mirai's bed in the infirmary, Ryuu had put things together. That had been Mirai saying goodbye, knowing he was going to die. Fighting even though he knew he would. Wanting, no, needing Ryuu to understand who—and what—he really was.
It had only been luck that Mirai hadn't died. And he was not allowed to pull that kind of stunt ever again. No one on Ryuu's crew was allowed to die. Especially not Mirai.
Even if he was an idiot.
Regret had melted through him as Ryuu had spoken, words in front of everyone else that he'd never wanted to say, letting them know... changing him in their view away from being someone just like them. Showing Ryuu had been one thing, it had been a final farewell and an expression of everything in his heart that he couldn't say then, still couldn't, but everyone else... he hadn't known if they would understand. If everything he'd done would outweigh the lies he'd told in order to stay in their company. But it had been too late, and the words had been said and Teppei and Konomi had realized the significance of the brace on his arm. But more importantly, Ryuu had had faith in him. Had faith that Mirai could fight Imparaizer and not die, would be allowed to stay if he proved himself.
No one had ever had that kind of faith in Mirai before. Among the Ultra, he was only a child, one to be given the easy missions well within his abilities, to be protected, to be ordered back home to train more for the coming fight, leaving behind the first real friends he'd made....
He hadn't been able to let down those friends.
He hadn't been able to let down Ryuu.
And so he'd transformed and fought alongside his teacher and then, protecting his human friends from Imparaizer's shots, nearly died again. But they'd reminded him of everything he had to live for in their company and he'd promised Ryuu....
So he forced away the pain, recklessly shoving the damage elsewhere, knowing that he'd pay for it later, and pulled forth the burning sense of these are my friends and this is their planet and I will not let you destroy it, shaping it into a new mode, a new power, a destruction meant to protect....
Somehow he'd won, and Ryuu had asked Master Tarou to let him stay. And Master Tarou had thought their team together could handle what was yet to come. The taste of that approval had been so sweet, knowing that for the first time he was being viewed and judged as an adult, and had won his teacher's respect.
Mirai thought nothing could have ruined his mood after that. The fact that the rest of Crew GUYS hadn't been angry with him, had forgiven the lies, only made everything even better. And now there was no more secret to keep from them.... The crown to the day had been the new comm Ryuu had given him, painted with the flames that matched Ryuu's own, matched the flames Mirai had painted on all the good luck charms he'd given to everyone. It said better than words could have that Ryuu wasn't angry at him at all, had forgiven everything, was still his best friend.
In the end, Ryuu was right, he decided, admiring the new comm unit as they all walked back to base. Even though it was humanity and the Earth in large that they all fought for, it was a few faces in specific that hovered, smiling and laughing, in his mind's eye.
They were his friends. His family. His home.
And he would protect them.
