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In her humble opinion, they were handling it.
Yes Shoutarou might have paced a trench into the office floor, and Akiko’s collection of slippers was being decimated by means of getting thrown in various directions, but they were handling the situation just fine.
“Did you get a connection?” she asked again. Impatient, even unreasonable but this was no time for the double driver to fail them.
“No.” He ran unsteady hands through his hair. “And stop asking.”
Like she would. The driver was their last lifeline after exhausting all other conventional means of locating them. Philip, and… She sighed.
Ryuu. It still felt strange to call him her husband.
Their husband. And their boyfriend who did not see much point in civil unions, though would no doubt cave to Shoutarou’s romantic tendencies at some point. Ryuu was not far behind after getting a good taste of wedding fever, and Akiko shamelessly counted on foisting the eventual ceremony preparations on him. She would have to supervise however, lest all of them end up in top to bottom colour-coded leather.
A nice dream. But it would only come true if they could find their other halves before—
Well. She didn’t quite know what the bad guys wanted. She hoped it wasn’t ransom, given none of their bank accounts were used to seeing more than four digits. Except Philip, whose financial and general inheritance situation was still somewhat of a headache.
But at least he was here.
“Why’d they have to take Ryuu-kun,” she pouted. Tried to pull both herself and Shoutarou out of the muddied, quicksand time when Philip was gone. “It’ll just make more trouble for them.”
“Yeah.” Shoutarou turned to her with a matching pout, readily playing up the offense. “What does he have that I don’t!”
Akiko’s eyebrows rose playfully. “A resistance to all those weird powers people keep hitting you guys with?”
“That doesn’t make him better than me,” Shoutarou made a face, without heat, keeping up the act until his features twisted into a real frown. “Do they want him and Philip because of that?”
That stopped her cold. “You think, because they’re different? But Philip…” But Philip had a real body now. So she thought. Would it be different enough for them?
“Maybe I can’t get through to him because—”
“No!”
“I’ll get out again. Just— search on foot. They’ve gotta be in the city, I can feel it.”
She didn’t doubt it. Even if the driver wouldn’t connect properly, it was still trying. Shoutarou was still trying. The entire police department had been mobilised. All their informants.
What could Akiko do?
“I’m coming with you.”
“Of course,” Shoutarou said. Already in a rush to run out the door, halfway into his vest and hat, at some point discarded on the countertop.
Akiko stood. “No,” she said, and he stopped to look at her. “I’m coming with you.”
His eyes widened. Closed, head falling back as he sighed before his gaze fell on her again. “Of course,” he repeated, heavy.
“You won’t tell me to be careful?”
“I know you will be.”
A smile rose to her face, tighter than she’d hoped. Holding her hand out, Akiko tried to make it more real. “Wait for me. We’ll find them.”
It felt almost ceremonial, the memory in her hands.
There was no time to stand on it.
When she crawled out of her small office wardrobe, Shoutarou looked very much like he was going to comment. He did not, and off they went.
Up and down the streets of Fuuto.
Hours later – it must be close to ten, now, since Philip and Ryuu went missing – they slid into chairs at the Shirogane cafe. Had coffee on the house to help keep them awake through the night. It would be long anyway, she knew.
Shoutarou probably knew it better.
Despite their best efforts, he had been so alone, without Philip. He was a part of all of them, yet Akiko had pushed aside her own grief to draw Shoutarou out of his. He’d refused to accept it, certain that Philip was out there somewhere.
Deep down, she wondered if he didn’t hurt more, being in their company while knowing one of them could not.
“I should be able to solve this,” he muttered. “Save them.” The stubbornness in his voice relieved her.
“You will. We will.”
“I just need something…”
Shoutarou’s phone rang. Excitement and trepidation warred in his expression as he listened, settling in the end into grim determination.
Silently, Akiko asked.
“Queen and Elizabeth came through. Yeah,” he nodded at her surprise. “There’s something rotten here.”
And so there was. As they caught their breath after racing to the headquarters of a certain company, Shoutarou explained their Irregulars had been tipped off by the owner’s daughter.
“They can throw the police off the scent, but not this city’s beloved private eye.” His boasting was slightly undercut by his still heaving chest.
They waited near a side entrance, barging in while an unsuspecting employee in a white coat was coming out. This close, the connection was sharp and Shoutarou ran down to the basement without a single wrong turn. Akiko followed, slipper in hand.
She heard the words before seeing the man himself. Around his mid-forties, smart business suit, arms raised in innocent ignorance. Behind him were rows upon rows of metal and opaque glass.
“They’re not here.”
“Oh they are.” Shoutarou’s head jerked to the side. “Ask me how I know.”
The man sighed. “In all honesty, I expected Joker.”
“Sorry,” Shoutarou grinned. Almost giddy with what Akiko thought was the knowledge Philip and Ryuu were safe, within their reach and it lightened her heart too. “Didn’t work out that well last time. So, you were expecting me?”
Why was he stalling? He should have transformed already, the Xtreme memory getting Philip but she didn’t even see it stir underneath Shoutarou’s jacket.
“I’m not as blind to my daughter’s hatred as she thinks. Not at all like her mother, that child. But still wary enough of the police to only rat me out to you.” Behind them, the door slid closed. Locked, with a sound that echoed off the glass and metal. “I’m prepared to get rid of one Kamen Rider.”
She pointed her slipper at him threateningly. “One Kamen Rider, and me!”
“Akiko!” Shoutarou barked, making a show of disapproval.
The man laughed. “Of course. I know how you work. The whole city does, and willfully pretends not to. You strut in, certain you have solved the case, and use your superior Memories to win even against the strongest Dopants. But I won’t fight you.”
A metallic screech, then Shoutarou was— gone. No. Not gone. Something had risen from the floor in front of her, another container of glass and metal. He should be inside it now, and she…
“Let them go!”
“You jest, Miss Narumi. I did not go to all the trouble of shutting their drivers down just to let them go. You, however… might be able to negotiate your life.”
Akiko… had learned to stand back, eventually. That was the smart thing to do. If Double used the Extreme memory, there wasn’t even an unconscious body to catch.
“You will expect my silence, of course.” Looking down, the floor was clear, unbroken concrete. “Well it’s not like I know anything. What do you even want my husband for?”
The man shrugged. “Research. A way to engineer that resistance of his in a fully functional living human. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I probably wouldn’t,” she agreed. “I’m no scientist.” Her heart beat in her throat, hammer-like. “But I am… this agency’s Chief. And my answer will always be—”
She held up the slipper. On it, the kanji read ‘never’. When she threw it, it flew faster than usual but the man still easily leaned to the side, dodging.
Knocking her cape aside with one hand, Akiko’s left slammed the driver open.
“Henshin!”
“Skull!”
***
It felt… a little bit like dying. Body growing cold, bones heavy but they didn’t weigh her down. The persistent ache in her leg from taking a fall for a client last week disappeared, everything slowing almost imperceptibly.
The man didn’t. Already inserting a memory into a driver, modelled after the Sonozakis’ ones. A true Masquerade, but this time Akiko could give as good as she got.
He punched at her and she jerked to the side, using the same momentum to land a kick that pushed him back. He didn’t come at her again, and it was only at the last moment that Akiko thought to look down, stop herself from walking into one of the traps that could disable drivers. Clicking his tongue, he lunged.
If a blow landed, she could not feel it.
Punch. Dodge. Kick. Jumping back, she took out the Skullmagnum, used it to gain some distance as she assessed the floor, noting every trap before a kick came her way. She shot at his leg, ineffectively before changing her mind and bringing the gun down on his thigh viciously.
She wasn’t even breathing hard. Yet breathing was hard ever since she turned on the driver.
Again. Punch. Dodge. Kick. Her father must have been a good match for Skull. He found it easier to not pick up the phone, to not explain. Blaming him. Of course she was. Did that make her an ungrateful daughter? Did she care? She wanted more from him. More time, more love. Not this cold comfort, this cold body, this cold thing inside her chest that he’d left her mother to warm.
That Shoutarou, Philip, Ryuu had warmed.
She took another breath.
Akiko was no fighter, and neither was this man. But she knew how to finish a fight.
“Skull! Maximum drive!”
She aimed the kick right on the man’s driver.
Broke the glass while he was down. It didn’t hurt. She didn’t bleed.
He didn’t get up. His chest rose and fell steadily.
Ryuu hugged her through the suit. She barely felt it in her body. Her heart beat faster, however, pumping what felt like scarce drops of blood through her limbs. She lifted unfeeling arms to wrap around him and he was— burning.
“You okay, chief?”
“As long as you are.”
Another pair of arms, around her side. Shoutarou. For a moment, the old question – why him – rose in her but she pulled him closer to push it away. She knew the answer, and could only make peace with it.
Could only be better.
They corralled Philip into the hug. He felt just like them, now, even through Skull’s numbness.
“We’re fine, Aki-chan.”
“Then I am too,” she said. Grinning, she heard it in her own voice.
She was lying, Akiko realised when she pulled out the Skull memory. But they held her up together, and Ryuu kissed her with all the sweetness and warmth she’d been missing. Kissing him back, the pain faded just a little.
Always subdued in public, at least in this, Shoutarou’s lips brushed against her cheek, feather-light. Philip’s head leaned on her shoulder, still not reassured by her words. He couldn’t help being perceptive where they were concerned.
“I will need to come up with a catchphrase won’t I? How about,” she deepened her voice, “‘now, count up your sins’?”
“I mean— if you want.” Shoutarou was so cute when he was trying not to get in her way. Akiko stuck her tongue out at him. “You little…”
“I’ll find something. Give me ideas,” she allowed, “but I reserve the right to decide whichever sounds the coolest.”
“Anything you want, chief.”
Outside, they heard the clamour of police. By the wayside, the man whose daughter hated him started coming to. As Ryuu and Philip got fussed over against their will by Fuuto PD and various medical personnel, Shoutarou pulled her aside.
“If you need more time, please don’t hide it.”
Akiko tried not to get defensive in the face of his sincerity. “You saw I can handle it.” Physically, she had made it out. Her heart might take a while to settle, a mess of emotion she could not hope to untangle just then.
He shook his head. “You’re an average person. Like me,” he said before she could protest. “It took me a long time to understand my limits.”
“And have you?” He grimaced down at her. “No, I get it. Thanks.” She took a look at where Ryuu was visibly trying to develop telepathy to beg them for help. He did not make for a good patient, and only for a slightly better one than Philip. “Think we gotta help them escape?”
“We can try,” Shoutarou allowed. “I’ll say the office is calling our names.”
“And,” Akiko grinned, pointing her recovered slipper at him, “you owe me a kiss once we’re there.”
In her and Ryuu’s altogether too big bed, he delivered. Drifted off to sleep wrapped all over them. With their bodies so near, Akiko almost forgot what that allconsuming chill had felt like.
Almost.