zerotohiro | Some Legends Are Told, Some Turn To Dust Or To Gold [CEREALIA INBOX]

...even if what I had to tell you would probably change your entire opinion about me? [He's still not moving, but at least he's oddly comforted by this.] I don't usually do this. [Cry on people, spill his guts, either or.]

.... you're smart, [ he begins, quietly, with the self-obvious. ] You're brave, and pretty spunky, too. You're not afraid to speak your mind when you feel like it. But you keep a lot of secrets, because you're afraid of getting hurt again. Beneath it all, you're pretty damn strong, Hiro. [ The arm around his friend's shoulders cinches a little tighter for a moment. ] Nothing's going to change that opinion, because it's the truth.

[Those things are true, but there's still a small part of him that wonders if the things he's done and the things he thinks make him smart and brave. There's a small huff somewhere in Yu's shoulder before he turns his head just enough to speak a little more clearly.]

That's part of it. The other part is that I'm afraid of hurting other people and disappointing them. [Which is also partially true, but for the most part he only really means Tadashi.] Did I ever tell you why I'm dating Ruby?

[ Well, that's inviting a story. As long as Hiro doesn't move, he keeps one arm around his friend's shoulders, protective and comforting, though he gives Hiro more room to breathe by pulling his other arm back. ]

No. Why's that?

[This is humiliating. He shouldn't be curled up into Yu's chest essentially blinking away stray tears and he should be better about explaining himself, but it's still comforting enough for him to continue this way.]

Ruby knows everything about me. Ruby knows everything about what happened back home and some of the other things that happened...she's the only person that know and she still likes me and doesn't treat me differently. I trust her more than almost anyone else in the entire world because she said...something weirdly profound for Ruby. About how I didn't have to do the thing where I act okay but look sad anyway because she still saw me as a hero. Ruby...kinda idolizes heroes. It's what she wants to do, too, by being a huntress. She stands for what's just and right and protecting people and I thought maybe she'd think I was a bad person for some things but she just sort of...accepted it. Even before knowing about Tadashi. Ruby's always sort of just accepted everything. And she said that she thinks I'm always fine enough to do what I have to do. She's probably right.

...maybe I'm just having a hard time still accepting all of it myself. Is that bad?

[ He's quiet, just letting Hiro talk. These sorts of things just kind of happen to him a lot, don't they? He can practically feel the S.Link rank up...

But this isn't the time for that.

All this talk of heroes... and he knows Hiro is one. What with the armor, and with Baymax, and all of that. If Ruby idolizes heroes, and with Tadashi's death... no wonder Hiro has such an obsession with needing to do these things himself. Not only did his brother die back home, but now he has a new reason to need to drive himself to perfection.

Yu shakes his head. ]

It means you're still figuring things out. There's nothing wrong with that. We're all still figuring out what we're going to be doing with our lives. Even my uncle was like that. [ Yu smiles a little, recalling the memories of his time with his uncle, as Dojima tried to find his way with Nanako. ] You don't have to know immediately what you're doing to do. All you have to know is that you don't have to do it alone, Hiro.

[ He keeps coming back to that point for a reason, and fixes his friend with a clear gaze. ] You aren't going to disappoint us. Not if we already believe in you and accept you for who you are. It sounds like the person you're really scared of disappointing ... is yourself.

[ Isn't that always the way? Your shadow... is born of being unable to accept yourself. As awful as that trial is, Yu almost wishes Hiro could face his Shadow here, and take that hardship head on... not because Yu wants his friend to suffer, but because Yu knows he would win. ]

[That's a good way to describe it; an obsession. He has a fixation on saving the world now and following Tadashi's footsteps that sometimes he barrels in without really thinking about the consequences of his actions. He's still learning to be a good leader and he's still, even now, learning about teamwork.

When Yu speaks, he pulls back from his friend's shoulder finally and brings a hoodie-covered hand up to swipe at his eyes and his nose. Apparently that doesn't bother him very much. Figuring things out? Sure, okay, there's nothing wrong with that. Yu's not exactly wrong either. He's worried about failure with something delicate like this, his own shortcomings, everything like that. How can he cal himself a hero if he doesn't actually own up to it? He'd be no better than some of the other people he's met here that're all talk and no action.]

...I wasn't supposed to become a superhero. But nobody else was doing anything to solve what happened, so I did it myself.

[ Yu watches him. ]

You never did tell me what happened. You just told me why.

[ Tadashi dying was why, of course. But what happened, what caused Tadashi to die...

Are they about to get into that, finally? ]

I haven't told anybody what happened except for Ruby. [The implication here should be clear to Yu, too. Not even Tadashi knows what happened after his death. He pulls back a tiny bit, curled up on the bench but he at least manages to mostly look Yu in the eye. They most certainly are about to get into that.]

The thing is...Tadashi's death wasn't really an accident. [A pause.] It wasn't a purposeful murder be he wasn't supposed to die. So...I told you about how Tadashi ran into the building to save his professor and how he never came back out, right? Professor Callaghan...he's done a lot for the robotics community...developed a lot of things, made his own laws of robotics...he was very important and he was Tadashi's mentor. I met him when Tadashi brought me to SFIT to try and convince me to apply to the school and he inspired me, too. It wasn't really a surprise that Tadashi ran in to save him, kinda like it wasn't a surprise he didn't survive that fire and neither did the microbots I made.

...I mean. That's what we thought, anyway. A couple of weeks later two really important things happened. I accidentally activated Baymax again, and I found one of my microbots in my pocket that had survived the fire. It was wigging out pretty bad though, the things aren't supposed to activate without other microbots to be attracted to. Baymax being Baymax decided he wanted to see where the microbot was trying to go. So we ended up in a warehouse and found that this masked guy was mass-producing my microbots. My inventions. And the guy in the mask wasn't happy to have company and he tried to kill us with the microbots.

You can imagine how the police reacted when I told them that a man in a kabuki mask tried to kill us with robots that he controlled with his mind. They wouldn't believe me, so I took Baymax home and...maybe it's bad it took me so long to figure this out, but after that? I realized that the fire had been on purpose. Someone had started the fire to actually steal my work.

[And he continues to talk, explaining how he made Baymax's armor and how he'd confronted the man in the mask by himself, how he'd almost gotten himself killed, how his friends had shown up at the last-minute to save them, how he'd convinced them to become superheroes if they really wanted to help him. He talks about the suits he made for them, the strategy they came up with, and most importantly he talks about how they had thought it was the CEO of Krei Tech, Alistair Krei, fueled by the fact Hiro had refused to sell his microbots.

He even talks about testing Baymax's wings and for the first time in the story he actually smiles a little. It doesn't last before he starts to talk about the island and the confrontation of the man in the mask.]

We really should have practiced with our gear, maybe. It was a giant mess. Maybe it was just luck that we knocked his mask off, but I had him cornered and I was finally ready to face Krei. [He stares at Yu silently for a minute before he shrugs.] Guess how surprised I was to find it wasn't Krei at all.

[Go on, Yu. He knows you have amazing deduction skills. Figure it out.]

[ As always, Yu is a good audience. Quiet but attentive, nodding along, making soft affirmative sounds to show he understands, expression soft when Hiro smiles, somber when Hiro talks of death and fire.

When the other boy finally stops talking, Yu is quiet for a moment, absorbing all of that information and making sure he's actually following along. Of course, Krei seems like the most obvious villain, and if it wasn't Krei...

He thinks back. To the fire, the reason Tadashi had died, and he feels his skin flash cold. Technically, theoretically, the man behind the mask could be anyone. Couldn't it? Anyone with reason to want to steal Hiro's microbots. But it wouldn't just be anyone. It would be someone with an interest in robotics. Someone who would have been there that day, and expressed an interest. Someone else who spoke to Hiro.

To try and convince me to apply to the school...

Yu can't say he understands the whole story yet. But this much he feels he's on the right track. ]

... it was Callaghan.

[His mouth's drawn into a thin line and he nods slowly.] None of us expected it...we all thought Callaghan died in the fire, but he used my microbots to protect himself. Tadashi went in there to save him and...[A pause. He averts his gaze.]

He said that Tadashi going in to save him was his own fault. That it was his own escape. He didn't care about what happened to him. Tadashi admired him and he didn't even care that he lost his own life trying to save him. [Another beat...] ...I kinda lost it after that...and I told Baymax to kill him. I pulled his nursing chip out so he was just using his fighting chip and set him to destroy Callaghan. He pushed my friends out of the way and he only listened to me and kept his sights set on Callaghan to follow his orders.

...Honey Lemon put his nursing chip back in before Baymax could finish the job and Callaghan got away. I was really mad at all of them for stopping us...so I took Baymax and left them on that island to go fix Baymax's scanners to track down Callaghan. I didn't need them. I knew how to fix everything. At least...I thought I did.

[And there's one more pause...before he finally explains the rest. He explains his anger, Baymax showing him Tadashi's recordings, his friends coming to the garage to forgive him and showing him that one flashdrive. He explains about Callaghan's daughter and why he was seeking revenge on Krei, the missing pieces of Silent Sparrow.

He's not even aware that his voice is more rushed and quiet the longer he talks and explains about the final fight, the way they were doomed and the way they overcame it. How they'd stopped Callaghan and saved Krei...and by the time he gets to the piece about the portal and Abigail he's barely above a whisper up until he finally finishes. Saving Abigail and losing Baymax. The last piece and the last thing he says is:]

...saying goodbye to Baymax was like losing Tadashi all over again. But it was his job to protect me, kinda like how Tadashi's always protected me before he died, too. That's why I can't risk losing anybody else. I'm not going to get lucky a second time. [Second time, Hiro?]

[ There are a lot of things here he could talk about. About the fact that Hiro did need his friends, or he wouldn't have gotten through. About how fixing everything couldn't have just come down to him alone, and yet here he is trying to do just that again. About how this must be the thing Hiro thought would change Yu's impression of him, but it changes nothing, because Yu almost did the same thing himself, once.

But first. ]

There are a few things I want to say. But... a second time?

Oh...yeah. Baymax's fist was the only part of him that made it out of the portal with me, but somehow he'd shoved his nursing chip into it. I found it a couple of days later. It's the chip that really makes Baymax Baymax...I could rebuild his body really easily but I could never rewrite all of his programming the way Tadashi had. The Baymax here? It's all the same coding but his body's my own work using Tadashi's old blueprints.

[...something occurs to him then.] ...it's almost like getting Tadashi back a second time, isn't it?

[ Yu's expression is gentle as he nods. ]

Yeah, it is.

[ He's quiet then, thinking on what he wants to say next. ]

There are a lot of things I want to say. But first... am I right in thinking that you believed your story about how you almost killed Callaghan would change my perception of you?

[There's a slow nod and he bows his head, almost ashamed of himself even now.] What kind of a hero tries to kill people? It's not what Tadashi would have wanted...Baymax reminded me of that.

[ Yu braces the heels of his palms on the edge of the bench, leaning forward. ]

Remember what I told you, about Nanako getting involved in the serial killer case back home?

[ He glances sideways at Hiro. ]

There came a critical time in the case when we thought she was dead, and we thought we had all the pieces to the puzzle... we thought we knew who the killer was, but we were wrong. We were alone in a room with that man... and we thought if we didn't act right then, he'd get away from us forever. The girls weren't sure, but...

[ Yu looks up, away, his face hard. ]

I seized his collar and started dragging him towards the TV in the room. If I'd dropped him in there, he would have been killed for sure. We would have been murderers... no better than what we thought he was.

[ His expression softens, and he looks at Hiro again. ]

"What kind of a hero tries to kill people?"

[It's his turn to listen and his eyes widen just a bit at the mention of Nanako. He knows how important she is to Yu's...everything (sister-complex, etc) and so to hear that Yu had been put in a similar situation and had acted the same way Hiro had...

...well, it puts a lot of things into perspective. Someone he idolizes and someone who's a better leader than he is has faced the same things. Truthfully, it helps that it's almost exactly the same thing. He wasn't sure anybody would really understand. By the time Yu looks at him again he's nothing but sympathetic and he finally understands.]

What made you stop? What changed your mind?

The sense that we were missing something. [ Yu presses his mouth into a line. ] That there was an answer still out there. It turned out I was right, because that man, Namatame, wasn't the killer at all. You could say he'd hurt my friends, but he'd actually done so out of a misguided attempt to save them. He'd definitely never killed anyone.

[ He breathes out. He'd left the hospital that night and broken down in sobs, not knowing if he'd done the right thing. Only Yosuke knows that. For a moment, Yu's eyes are far away before he can bring himself back to the present. ]

It was a close call. Grief can drive you to do some pretty terrible things.

[There's a soft "oh" at that. He doesn't speak again for the time being as he ponders that over, but he knows Yu's right. Grief does weird things to people.]

...Callaghan wanted revenge on Krei for what happened to his daughter because he didn't have anyone to convince him otherwise. We tried to talk him out of it but he was too focused on his anger. That was before we knew Abigail was still alive. [A pause.] But...how do you stop grief from completely taking over like that?

[ Yu gives that question the consideration it deserves, and is quiet for a time himself. ]

I guess that depends. I wanted to find the real truth. That's what stopped me. But there's your friends, too. In the end, I couldn't have gotten through everything that happened with Namatame and Nanako without my friends to support me.

...[It's really all about friends, isn't it? He realizes that without his own friends he would have been crushed by the same thing as well and he bites on his lip.] And that's why you're really intent on making sure I'm not doing these things alone, too. I get it. My friends...well, Baymax especially, helped me back there.

Is there ever going to be a time it's okay to do these things myself?

What do you think?

[ He's not teasing, he's not mocking. It's an honest question, and his expression is open, serious. ]

...I think that by the time there is a time I can do these things myself I probably won't want to anymore. [He glances up at Yu again, smiling softly.] Just give me time to really get used to it, okay?

[ Yu's expression softens, something that isn't quite a smile, but partway there. He's satisfied that Hiro has found his own answer. ]

Yeah.

[ And he'll be there to back him up in the meantime, too. That goes without saying, and he knows Hiro knows that by now. ]

Edited 2016-02-02 02:48 (UTC)

Thank you. [...] Sorry for...sorta...crying all over you. [Yes he's highly embarrassed about that, forgive him senpai.]

Some Legends Are Told, Some Turn To Dust Or To Gold [CEREALIA INBOX]

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