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The AI that calls himself Flame barges into Takeru’s life as a ball of literal fire with a flair for the casually dramatic, all of which Takeru figures out about two minutes into talking with him, and that’s two minutes being generous . It’s probably more like thirty seconds of pure and utter bewilderment and panic that Takeru’s somehow managed to screw up his duel disk before the realization hits. Cyberse. Ignis. Hanoi. Flame tells his story in words that Takeru understands but wants to roll his eyes at more often than not- but it’s simple enough, once he gets past the embellishments, and one he can do something about.
He’d been powerless on the other side of the screen when Playmaker had fought the Knights of Hanoi and saved the network, and what Flame (indomitable soul dream no really stop explaining your name I get it) promises him is action.
Okay, Takeru thinks. LINK VRAINS. Playmaker. Dueling. Getting to be a hero. He can do this. He’s been waiting his whole life for this, probably.
Flame guides him through all the processes- setting up his account, putting protection on his account, putting another layer of encryption on his account, putting… something on his account that could be a solitaire function for all Takeru knows about the lines of code or whatever it even is Flame keeps spitting out at him. After a while he just stops asking questions and blindly starts doing as Flame asks, since most of it comes down to pushing a virtual button, here or there, and making vague noises of agreement as Flame spouts the modern-day equivalent of sci-fi technobabble at him. Takeru’s finally gotten to the part where he can customize his avatar; Flame insists on the fire theme, and Takeru immediately agrees- as if he’s going to choose anything else. A hero’s gotta burn with passion and spirit and soul, after all. Nothing less is acceptable.
What’s cool? Takeru thinks, a scarf? Something that would trail behind him in the winds of a speed duel like a signature, bright and flashy and red. Yeah, a scarf. I wonder if I can make that burn? If it burns, does it actually, burn, or does it just kind of-
Flame says something, but Takeru doesn’t listen, just hums and pushes the button Flame tells him to and goes back to figuring out how he’s supposed to have both a scarf and a bandana on his avatar at the same time. It’s possible. Probably. Maybe. Whatever, Takeru’s going to make it work.
“This is the part,” Flame informs him helpfully, “where you fall madly in love with me.”
“Uh-huh, got it.” Takeru accidentally entertains the thought for a couple of seconds because he’s still too busy trying to figure out how to make his avatar’s scarf not look so pathetically floppy before it actually hits him. And it hits Takeru hard. Like, he’s pretty sure getting blindsided by a semi wouldn’t take the wind out of him so fast.
“What? Why would I do that?” He jerks his arm up and stares at Flame, eyes wide, demanding answers. Except no explanation is going to be enough. Not a single word that comes out of Flame’s smug not-mouth is going to be able to explain this away in any rational manner.
Flame answers the question in complete and utter seriousness. Important tone and all. Takeru wants to die. If the network could just, Takeru doesn’t know, but like, collapse on him now, that’d be great. A log-in error. Those are things that happen, right? Maybe the last few weeks have just been a fever dream while he’s been in a coma. That would be more plausible than the words that come out of Flame’s mouth.
“Because I’m the hero, of course.”
Can Takeru somehow smash Flame back inside his duel disk? He’d kind of like to smash Flame back down to an eye in his duel disk, right about now. He leans over to tower over Flame and squints at his glowly little eyes. Assert dominance, Takeru. Don’t let him say whatever the hell he wants. “No, I’m the hero around here. You’re my sidekick.”
“I, in seeking you, the damsel clearly in great distress, out, am clearly much more suited to the role of hero,” Flame says. And he means it, is the thing, just like he means that ridiculous name he’d decided on for himself and insists on explaining over and over again.
“I’m not even going to bother pointing out all the holes in that logic,” Takeru says, and thinks that this really isn’t the kind of suspicious character he expected from an AI at all, even if it happens to be a living one.
“Your lack of resistance betrays your agreement,” Flame says, and oh, Takeru thinks, he’s one of those types. Takeru tries to find something to say even if just to be contrary, because he deserves more than this, but he can’t come up with a single thing. He tries to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose or push back his bangs before realizing he doesn’t have either right now and ends up sort of awkwardly smacking himself in the face with his fingers. And it hurts, which is just the cherry on top of the mountain of whipped cream misery.
“Whatever,” he says, “Whatever! Just make sure we look cool when we make our debut.”
Flame absolutely beams up at him. “Of course! I would have done so even if you hadn’t asked.”
Their first duel goes pretty well, all things considered. Flame’s gotta introduce himself for the Takeru can’t even remember-th time, and he gives up like twice, but whatever. It’s fine, they make it through. Whatever worries Takeru has, ( A lot. He has a lot of worries and it seems like every day Flame tries to find new ways to give Takeru a heart attack. Maybe that’s a game for Ignises. Figuring out how many times they can throw off all their human’s plans because why in the world would Flame contact Playmaker’s Ignis without telling him??) they mostly resolve themselves. It at least takes the awkwardness out of figuring out how to approach Playmaker. Even if his first impression ends up being weird stalker who threw himself into an empty classroom instead of something… normal. Oh well. At least Soulburner’s entrance will live on forever, thanks to Flame’s insistence on- and, Takeru has to admit, surprisingly tasteful ability to execute- the dramatic.
Flame might be… Flame, but the possibility they’ll end up getting along after all just gets higher with each duel. Takeru’s pretty much convinced himself that the weird stuff is a fluke, because given his story, Flame probably hasn’t interacted with humans before. Takeru doesn’t know much about AIs, but they learn, right? So maybe he’s being weird over nothing. Maybe Flame is just going to be like that for a while until he learns how to be an actual person. AI. Whatever.
And then Flame takes them to a Ferris wheel out in the middle of nowhere, won’t admit to wanting to ride the Ferris wheel, then insults it before they even hit the top. In front of Yusaku and Ai. Who are, Takeru wants to remind Flame, very much the real heroes in the gondola. And Takeru’s pretty sure he gets insulted somewhere in there too, which- come on Flame, not the impression he wants to make.
By the time they get off, Takeru just wants to go home. Except it’s time for them to go be heroes, and at least Flame isn’t quite so focused on self-preservation that he avoids danger. Except he kind of advocates charging straight in, which maybe isn’t any better. But at least it keeps with the mood of the group, so he and Yusaku might be even on the whole ‘embarrassing AI’ thing given Ai’s little stunt. He’s not sure yet, but maybe. It’s not like he’s going to ask.
Takeru wakes up and he’s frozen in place, looking up at the ceiling with mind racing, trying to figure out where he is and when he is and why he’s here and why can’t he make himself move just let him move so he can lash out- “Ah, Takeru! You’ve woken. There’s still quite a decent amount of time until morning, so I advise you go back to sleep. If needed, I can provide aid.”
Takeru still might be half-unable to remember his own name, but he knows one thing for certain, and it’s that he completely and utterly fears the way Flame says aid. Like it’s some sort of twisted science experiment or power trip or who even knows what the hell an AI considers a sleep aid when they definitely don’t have any sense of the concept.
Which- right. He’s in his room, in his bed, staring up at the ceiling with one eye closed against the stupidly bright Flame popping up from his duel disk on his desk. “I don’t need aid, thanks.”
“Oh,” Flame says, puffing up quite proudly, “You want to be comforted, don’t you! Don’t worry, a Knight in shining armor is always here to comfort his Princess in times of-“
Takeru throws a pillow at him, because the other closest options are his glasses (no, he really doesn’t need to add presumed extreme nearsightedness to the list of reasons Flame seems to be assembling to take care of him when he’s not even that blind in the first place) or his alarm clock (which is appealing but plugged into the wall, and also if it somehow breaks his duel disk Takeru is going to panic because he has no idea how to fix that and what if he ends up accidentally murdering Flame, or something).
Flame makes a muffled noise of protest as the pillow lands on top of him, because apparently it’s too heavy to move, or something, and Takeru has no idea how that works and very little capability at- he glances over at his clock- 3:49 am to even try. Takeru rolls over and tries not to think about it.
He does try. Really. He closes his eyes and everything.
Takeru rolls over again and squints at his clock.
3:50. The numbers mock him. They’re red and impersonal and they mock him, because he definitely took longer than that to try and forget about it. He’s just entered a time slip, obviously. That’s the sensible answer, because he definitely didn’t cede defeat in under sixty seconds to Flame’s nonsense. And with that settled, Takeru sighs and stumbles out of bed to grab his pillow. And it’s just because he needs it to sleep. Definitely not because Flame keeps making muffled noises or anything that Takeru feels bad about ignoring. Definitely not.
“Rude!” Flame accuses immediately, burning. He’s basically a miniature sun. Worse than a phone screen without night mode on, at least. Takeru squints and jerks his head back and thinks that he really is going to go blind. “Very rude of you to attack the gallant AI, trying to humbly to offer comfort to those in need-“
“Please just stop,” Takeru hisses, wondering for the dozenth time how exactly he could possibly be the source of this ridiculous thing.
Flame crosses his arms and acts pouty. The fire in his eyes sizzles out, and Takeru breathes a sigh of relief because finally he can look down at his desk without squinting like an idiot staring up at a solar eclipse.
“Fine. But, if you’ll allow me,” Flame says, and entirely unnecessarily clears his throat, which bodes absolutely nothing good for Takeru. And then he does it again, which kills that last little spark of hope Takeru has that whatever Flame says next won’t be a complete and utter disaster. “Ah, my poor Takeru, who can’t find solace even-“
Takeru drops the pillow back atop his duel disk. He feels no remorse. Not a single shred, nope, not at all.
When he falls asleep again, he dreams about a white knight that’s somehow literally on fire, leaping across a weirdly dappled landscape that doesn’t actually register as weird in his poor five am sleep deprived brain. He also dreams he’s watching this from the top of a tower, leaning out a window, cheering the Knight on. The Knight glances up, eyes burning, about to shout something up to him- and promptly gets smacked in the face with a spotted mushroom and sinks out of existence. Takeru laughs himself awake, thinking that’s what Flame gets for taking his eyes off danger.
He doesn’t remember that when he wakes up, which is probably a good thing. If he did, he’d probably have just thrown himself out the window. Well, okay, not that, because Takeru hasn’t dragged himself along this far just to be an idiot now.
But he’d definitely have tried to summon some kind of void to swallow him whole. Black magic is always a valid option. Maybe call up the local Eldritch horror and see if there’s any need for a former shut-in to liven up whatever cave they occasionally crawl out of for the rest of his mortal life.
You know, Takeru tells himself, something rational, instead of admit how deeply Flame’s already worked his way into Takeru’s subconscious. But it’s fine, because he doesn’t remember a thing. Nope, definitely not a single thing at all.
And besides. Flame will give it up eventually. Takeru’s sure of it.
Except Flame. Won’t. Stop. Takeru doesn’t even think it’s intentional at this point. It’s like Flame is on complete and utter autopilot whenever it comes down to any minor inconvenience that they might encounter ever, explaining very precisely the ways that Takeru can overcome them. Including, but not limited to: employing the service of various house robots that Flame claims he can reprogram to make more efficient, remodeling his entire apartment in order to greater maximize productivity and keep Takeru from tripping over that one cord in the middle of the room all the time, and trying to take his turns for him when he duels. It’s not even backseat dueling, it’s full on doing everything except activating the cards.
And turns out, Flame is learning. To make jokes. They don’t even have the decency to be good. They’re shitty puns that make Takeru start contemplating the ethical dilemmas of AI murder. But even that Takeru can shove down into the depths of his soul and ignore, because they’re stuck together. Takeru’s honor-bound to help Flame out.
The turning point is this:
“Oh, Zaizen?” He calls, putting on a friendly face because it turns out she might be on their side after all, even if she’s totally unaware of their identities- but she walks straight on past him. Not even a glance. So Takeru just has to watch her back as she goes down the hall, standing there like an idiot. At least there’s no one around. Okay, that didn’t go as planned .
Flame crosses his arms and nods. “Ah. As expected. You’re rather unpopular.”
Takeru lifts his arm to glare very pleasantly down at his duel disk, because seriously, Flame, what’s that supposed to mean- but Flame continues, “Well. At least you have me.”
“I have Yusaku,” Takeru protests mostly just to be contrary, because it’s fun to see if Flame will actually reply or not when he realizes he’s lost the argument.
“I appreciate you haven’t included the fool,” Flame replies, which Takeru assumes means Ai, and that’s it, why hadn’t he thought of that before Takeru you idiot-
Takeru turns down the hall in the other direction and all but runs looking for Yusaku. He finds him outside, apparently about to head home, which is perfect timing for Takeru to drag him over to the secluded part of campus with no explanation to deal with this problem. And Yusaku actually goes along with it, which is nice. Most people would probably assume he was out for murder if he dragged them to a deserted place without accepting protest. Which is exactly what he’s after, actually, but that’s not the point.
“Yusaku,” Takeru asks, because he’s kind of desperate at this point and Yusaku is the literal only other person in the world he knows that might be able to commiserate with him. “Does Ai make comments about your love life?”
For a second Yusaku looks alarmed, and then he slowly, hesitantly, nods. The relief that hits Takeru then is like a tidal wave, almost knocking him off his feet. Takeru laughs, and pushes back his bangs. He’s floating, ridiculing his past self for getting so worked up over nothing.
“Oh, good. I was worried all those ‘charming my Princess comments’ actually meant something. But if Ai says them to you too, then I guess that just makes it Ignis humor?”
Yusaku blinks at him. And blinks again. And one more time for good measure, and now Takeru’s standing really awkwardly with one hand hovering in midair, while Yusaku stares at him like he’s totally lost his mind.
Okay, so apparently that’s just a Flame thing. Great to know. Brilliant. Takeru’s going to throw his duel disk in the dumpster, now. Better than dealing with whatever this situation has just turned into.
“I think,” Yusaku starts, and it’s thoughtful enough that it gets Takeru to stop manically pondering homicide- can you even call it homicide if it’s an AI?- for at least a second. “I think they say those things because they’re worried about us being lonely.”
“Well, more or less,” Ai chimes in, and the two of them jump out of their skin. Or okay, Takeru jumps out of his skin. Yusaku just looks mildly unnerved. Ai takes advantage of their silence and continues, “Oh. But Yusaku. You know, if you want your chance before-“
"Be quiet,” Yusaku hisses in the strangest tone of voice Takeru has ever heard him use, which he can compare only to a yowling cat except it’s kind of more like a squeak if a squeak could be fearsome and okay Takeru is done with trying to figure any of this out. Instead he just bolts and saves them all the awkwardness of trying to deal with their idiot AIs and their dumb comments.
The thing is, Takeru thinks, when Flame isn’t being so embarrassing that Takeru wants to dump a litre of gasoline over his head or chuck his duel disk into the ocean for some unfortunate shark to try eating, they actually make a pretty good team. Soulburner soars and blazes new trails Takeru never could have dreamed of before, and Flame is right there by his side, cheering him on even if he swings uselessly between moods and barely contributes things. I mean, we win, Takeru thinks, so they can’t possibly be that bad of a combination.
Still, Burning Draw really does make it hard to breathe, or even move for that matter, which Takeru thinks is totally unfair in VR but whatever, so he takes a knee and a second to catch his breath as his D-board soars forwards.
Flame looks like he wants to say something, and Takeru has a split second of pure, semi-irrational fear before it passes and he figures that Flame can say whatever he wants. They did win. Takeru will take it even if it’s a pun.
“This hero is proud of you, Soulburner. You may have actually shown improvement. Worthy of a partner.”
“Yeah, well, this Princess isn’t looking to be saved. I better be able to fight for myself.”
Flame looks up at him. Takeru runs his words over. Takeru thinks about jumping off his D-board and just plummeting. At this height, maybe the shock will kill him in real life, too. Because: Oh, fuck. Did he just play along with this? Did he really just-
Damage control, Takeru, damage control- but the second he opens his mouth to say something, anything, Flame exclaims- “Soulburner!”
And he’s… touched. Legitimately, honestly, touched. Just by Takeru playing along with his hero charade. His eyes don’t water, because he probably doesn’t have that function, and would probably rebel just at the thought of it. But they kind of blur, and then set themselves on fire, and Takeru’s not even phased by that anymore. As a matter of fact, he can even tell that they burn softer than usual.
All the half-formed protests die in Takeru’s throat. He can’t kill that kind of enthusiasm. Especially not when, to be completely honest -dredging up the depths of his soul, here - it’s kind of fun to banter and play along. But mostly to banter. Make no mistake. Mostly to banter.
Okay, but here’s the thing about Flame, Takeru thinks, staring up at his ceiling in the dark and contemplating every life choice he’s ever made, trying to understand how it’s led him to this one very specific moment. Flame is. Well. Flame is. He’s ridiculous and occasionally has no idea how to interact and says things that are very bluntly insulting, not really meaning them as disses at all.
“You are cold,” Flame says, “And I am warm. Or rather, I can run programs to hear your duel disk. Your skill leaves you very tired, does it not? I’m just proposing the most obvious solution.”
That Takeru use a highly advanced AI like a hot water bottle for tiny pet animals abandoned by their mothers. Takeru has zero idea how Flame comes up with these things. Zero. Less than zero. If there’s a way out there to have negative idea of comprehending something, then Takeru’s just discovered it.
But it… doesn’t actually sound that bad. He can try it for a sleepless hour, or something, then have something to rub in Flame’s face for once when it inevitably doesn’t work.
“Okay,” Takeru says, and stands to grab his duel disk as Flame lights up. Literally. Takeru shields his eyes and splutters out a protest until Flame settles back down. He’s starting to think that Flame not only has no sense of how to read the air, but how to read the lighting, either.
Flame clears his throat conspicuously after Takeru picks him up. It sounds like a cough that he’s trying to pass off as natural, which is simultaneously the most human and most bullshit thing Takeru has ever seen him do. But it’s not like he says anything afterwards, so Takeru figures it’s fine. Maybe they can have a conversation over the next hour or something, and it won’t be so bad. He’ll still be tired as hell, he thinks as he sort of curls around his duel disk as he lays on his side. It’s warm, and it’s nice, because for all Takeru loves fire he’s always run cold.
Except Flame mostly stays quiet, just humming occasionally as if lost in thought. After a second he sinks down into the duel disk and the light from it dims drastically to a soft, reddish pulse like a slow heartbeat. Probably done by messing with the programs in his disk, or whatever. Takeru is too tired to care, because he knows Flame won’t break it.
The soft light and the warmth are kind of nice, Takeru thinks- and then suddenly he’s blinking awake to morning trailing light over his ceiling without so much as remembering when he closed his eyes. He rolls over, back onto his side, and Flame pops out of his duel disk looking incredibly, infuriatingly smug. “You fell asleep in five minutes.”
Takeru kind of wants to punch the wall. Takeru does punch the wall, then thinks it was stupid to punch the wall because that’s the brick one. And then Flame starts fretting in that stupidly backhanded way of his again, and Takeru just decides to go back to sleep. He flops down, throws his pillow over his face, and clutches his irritated knuckles. It’s Sunday, after all. And the only one to see him act like a loser is Flame, which Takeru doesn’t think about, because the last thing he needs is to give Flame more ammunition to chuck back at him at inopportune times.
But if he did- just on the conditional of if he cared enough to think about it- he’d find he didn’t really mind much at all.
The Ignises are conversing, and if it’s in any language that any human that’s ever walked or will walk the planet could ever understand, then Takeru certainly has never heard it. Which doesn’t mean much, considering he’s probably never heard most of the languages in the world, and apparently programming languages are things too, which completely and utterly isn’t the point because Flame suddenly stops and says very proudly, perfectly understandable to everyone in the room-
“I slept with Takeru, once.”
Thankfully, everyone in the room just means Ai and Yusaku and Takeru, crammed into the back of Cafe Nagi. Unfortunately, that means Yusaku and Ai hear Flame’s idiocy.
Takeru panics. He thinks a dozen things at once and his words trip over themselves to fall out in whatever the hell order they want, apparently, but at least he’s still capable of making sentences.
“Not just once!” Takeru defends himself with, waving his hands wildly before him to deny all responsibility before stopping dead in his tracks because that wasn’t the thing he’d meant to say. “I mean, not like that!”
Yusaku and Ai’s stares are lasers straight through Takeru’s soul. The judgement burns. Or maybe that’s just his face, dropping hard into his hands and smashing the frames of his glasses into his skin. He’s going to have palm prints all over the lenses. He doesn’t even care.
“I’m not into Flame,” he mumbles into his hands, but obviously it’s loud enough to hear, because Ai yells something in that damn Ignis language again and Flame lets out the most pathetic sound Takeru could possibly imagine. Kicked puppies wouldn’t sound so completely and utterly forlorn.
“Takeru… Soulburner, my partner… ”
Takeru risks looking up. Flame is doing that fire-crying wobbly eye thing and Takeru hates with a burning passion that it makes him feel kind of bad for something that isn’t even his fault. He wants to accuse Flame of starting it, except he’s not actually six years old, so he groans out instead- “You know what I mean.”
“Do I, Takeru? Have I truly ever known you at all? Or has our relationship been that one-sided?”
Next to Yusaku, Ai starts to positively cackle. Forget Flame, the second Takeru learns how to program stuff, Ai is going down first. Takeru knows how to hold a grudge, he’ll see. Oh, he’ll see.
“No,” Takeru glares and says, “Stop. You’re phrasing it like that on purpose. Why do you do this?”
Flame doesn’t answer the question, because of course he doesn’t. That would be far too actually helpful to Takeru. “A hero is nothing without a good love interest to join hands and fight with.”
Takeru groans. He can feel his face still burning, and absolutely nothing about this is fair, because coherent words have officially deserted him. Flame’s death will be long and painful and Takeru will have no remorse. He swears it, this time. He’s going to create the deadliest, most painful virus known to AI-kind. They’ll see who’s suffering then.
Yusaku claps him very solemnly on the shoulder. It would be awkward, except Takeru is so deep down the hole of awkward interactions that honestly the whole attempt at solidarity might actually pull him out a few centimeters. Millimeters.
“Good luck with your relationship,” Yusaku says, and Takeru goes right back into freefall.
He still curls up with his duel disk that night though, because it’s routine, and honestly he can’t deal with Flame complaining about being lonely as a lover left alone on a cold winter’s evening or whatever the hell he’s going to come up with tonight. Especially because he’s going to feel bad about it.
Because despite everything (and there’s a lot of everythings that just keep piling up, more than Takeru even wants to try and count) Takeru is kind of… grateful for Flame. Dumb banter aside, Flame lets him be a hero. Have a purpose. Have someone to stand with so he’s not fighting quite so alone, anymore- even when Yuskau and Ai aren’t around. He looks down at Flame, who’s basically the closest to sleep mode he ever gets tucked down in the duel disk with eye closed. You don’t know what you have, you dumb AI. No one else would put up with you.
It takes a second for Takeru to actually process what he’s thought, because apparently his brain doesn’t belong to him anymore.
He squints down at Flame some more. He can’t. There is no possible way. He definitely, without even the slightest chance, isn’t.
He can’t even finish the thought. He taps the top of his duel disk with a tentative finger instead, and Flame pokes his head out. “Yes?”
“Nothing,” Takeru replies, but feels like he doesn’t need to finish the thought anymore.
Flame eyes him suspiciously, but doesn’t protest. “Call me anytime you need,” he replies. “I’ll graciously indulge you, even if it’s nothing.”
Takeru huffs out a shallow laugh. “Okay. Thanks, partner.”
“Any time,” Flame says, and sinks back down into his duel disk. Takeru shifts a little closer to it.
Fuck, Takeru thinks, he really, actually, might just a little bit -
Well, whatever, he thinks, and closes his eyes. It’s tomorrow’s problem for tomorrow’s Takeru.
(Tomorrow’s Takeru wakes up, has a blessed thirty seconds of well-rested obliviousness, and then yesterday’s problematic revelations all come crashing back like an anvil over his head. He looks over at his duel disk, has two intense, deliberating seconds of soul-searching, and decides he’s going to set himself on fire.
“Oh, Takeru. Good morning!”
And Takeru sighs, because no, he’s not. He’s going to set Flame on fire, because somehow, Takeru is still sure this is all his fault. If he could be any less weirdly charming -
Nope, Takeru thinks, and slams his face back into his pillow, ignoring Flame’s questions about what’s wrong with him today. No. Nope, not going to deal with this today, either. Good luck tomorrow, me.)