People couldn’t fly, they told him, which made no sense whatsoever, because he could. Not while he was awake, perhaps. Later, he’d decide ‘not while he was in this shape’, but not be able to explain what he meant, to himself or anyone else.

The wing tattoos he gets across his shoulders aren’t quite right. He’s never been the feathery type, but the suggestion of bat wings instead makes him feel sick for a full minute. So, bright macaw feathers, across his back and down his shoulders.

The other design, the one on his thigh, he drew while higher than he ever wanted to be again with his feet still on the ground. He’d explained it to everyone else there, but none of them remembered what he’d said either. The redhead he'd met at that party said at the time that the design Cielo had come up with on the spot for him was ‘a true reflection of his inner soul’. Later, Heat would say instead, “it's a fuckin comet with teeth, what the fuck d’you want?”, which is a much closer reflection of his soul in Cielo’s opinion.

He meets Serph while working in an accessories store. He’d be fired two weeks later, but they’d let him get away with too much already, just because his hair was like blue cotton candy and his smile was bright and wide, and children liked him. He meets Serph, who’s looking to get his ears pierced, or something, and for a moment, he thinks he sees something on his face. Trick of the light, perhaps?

Cielo hasn’t got any piercing qualifications yet, so he offers to do Serph’s ears for free after hours, if he comes back. Most people think he's joking when he says that. Serph shrugs in a way that some part of Cielo recognises as acquiescence, and leaves.

His eyes linger on Cielo’s thighs before he turns and goes. Anyone else and he'd’ve assumed they were checking him out or astounded by how short his shorts were - but this guy with the strange pale eyes was definitely just looking at his tattoo. He doesn’t say anything, though.

Cielo thinks he might understand this guy anyway.

Serph doesn't make a noise when the needle goes through his cartilage, either. The familiarity of how quiet he is is what surprises Cielo, not the quietness.

He doesn’t see him again until he’s working at the cute little goth boutique and his hair's in big bouncy braids, and Heat tells Cielo that his ‘friend or whatever’ is looking for housemates. When he and Heat show up at the place to see if it's any good, Cielo finds the strangest sense of safety besides Heat’s friend (or whatever), Gale, and he can't not grin when Serph slouches into the kitchen ten minutes later, only to stop with one hand in a cereal box to stare at the new possible renters.

“Serph,” Heat chokes out.

Apparently they’d gone to the same school.

Later, Heat would tell him about the kids Serph had brutalised out of nowhere when they were 14; how Heat heard about it secondhand, and seeing the scabs on Serph’s knuckles and the bruise on his face had resulted in an instant, but fleeting crush. Cielo would point out that he was blushing, and suggest that it wasn't so fleeting, and Heat would punch him.

Later still, Serph would mention that he'd always felt drawn to Heat, but even when they got summer jobs at the same shitty game store, the year Heat dyed his hair black, he'd never felt like he would notice him  and had given up. Cielo would open his mouth to ask if he'd really given up, only to be interrupted by Heat insisting that that was bullshit: there was no way he’d forget Serph working in the same place as him. Serph would roll his eyes and the two would tussle off the sofa and onto the floor and Cielo would call Heat’s dogs over to break it up with fur and slobber.

Their final housemate is a girl from Serph and Gale’s old student house, still working on her medical degree, and Cielo is only surprised that her hair’s just dip-dyed pink, instead of all the way. She says she’s a vegetarian, and when he catches her with KFC after a nasty breakup he promises not to tell. She shares her meat and cries more about it than about the girl. He tries to sympathise, and reassures her she’ll find someone better. Two weeks later, she’s happily pining for the punk girl who works at the health food shop she likes. Cielo wonders if she has green hair, like another time he still can’t quite pin down.

Sometimes, he worries about the things that don’t surprise him. Gnaws his lip to shreds thinking about where these thoughts come from - about what’s right and real, and what’s not. Sometimes he forgets about all that and he’s just an ordinary kid with too much hair and weird friends. That scares him more.

He dreams of flying, still. Darting between lightning flashes and feeling beautiful and free.

But now he knows Serph and Heat’s dreams are just as strong and twice as violent, full of cold rain and hot blood - now he knows Argilla goes into the garden to get dirt under her nails when she’s stressed - now he knows Gale’s thoughts on reincarnation, and that the colour of the skies he remembers are the same as in Cielo’s dreams.

One time when Serph was really out of it, exhausted and not really all there, he called Cielo ‘Dyaus’, and Cielo burst into tears

“It’s not an attack,” Allura confirms through the speaker in his helmet. She sounds sleepy. Shiro’s pretty sure he remembers her working on interplanetary treaties last night before he retired to his own room. No doubt she didn’t let herself even consider sleep before she’d triple-checked them and practised her speeches to the mice’s satisfaction. “I’m going through the castle’s systems and processes now, I’ll let you know when I figure out what’s happened and we can fix it.”

She’s got a terminal by her bed now. They all do, even if some of them aren’t as good at using theirs as Pidge and the Alteans. Lance’s idea: thoughtfulness shrouded in an attempt to encourage laziness. It’s mostly for Pidge and Allura, to encourage them to actually sleep sometimes, maybe.

The alarm stops while Allura works on pinpointing its source. Knowing that he’ll get an answer and a course of action soon enough, Shiro is able to relax a bit.

It’s at this point that he realises that he’s floating.

“Pretty sure it’s the gravity,” he confirms aloud, though it wouldn’t have taken Allura that long to figure out, he’s sure.

“No, no, the castle’s internal gravity field is functioning perfectly. It’s-”

“Uh, no, it’s not.” He wouldn’t normally interrupt Allura, but he’s about a foot off the floor and steadily moving towards the wall.

“I’m looking at a screen right now that’s telling me there is a fire, Shiro,” she corrects him, thankfully sounding less annoyed and more alarmed.

Or perhaps not thankfully, since there’s a fire inside the castle somehow.

He swears under his breath, swings his legs in an attempt to kick against - anything that’ll send him in the direction of the door, really. No such luck.

“Where is it? I’ll--” Well, he’ll do something, as soon as he can touch off against a surface.

“It’s--” she lets out a noise he can’t quite define, a confused little ‘hm’ where he half-expected a worried gasp, and when she speaks again to confirm, her tone is more thoughtful than anything. “Keith’s room?”

“Yeah, and it’s out,” comes another voice over the helmet speakers. Keith sounds a little out of breath. “Sorry for the wait, I’d’ve been faster if I hadn’t been putting out a fire.”

From anyone else, it might’ve been a joke, but from Keith it feels like an honest apology.

“Shiro, did you say something about the gravity?” Allura has that same strange thoughtful tone to her voice, and it makes Shiro want to just ask her to be straightforward and tell him whatever her suspicions are, but he already knows there’s no use. She tends to let things stew unless it’s urgent. Apparently this isn’t urgent.

“Uh, yeah,” he confirms. “I’m floating.”

“What-” Keith, at least, is showing some concern for him.

“Hm,” is all he gets out of Allura. Her voice shifts from the small speaker in his helmet to the castle-wide PA. “Paladins, please come meet in Shiro’s room.”

And he’s left gradually rotating in the middle of his room.

There’s enough silence for him to entertain the idea of elevator music accompanying his slow circling, and then a babble of voices all at once as the rest of the paladins put their helmets on.

“Why Shiro’s room--”

“Hey, Allura, there’s something seriously--”

“Did you say floating--”

“So I came to the bridge for--”

“What’s going on--”

“I’m actually kinda--”

“Is Shiro--”

He closes his eyes, takes off his helmet, and takes a deep breath through his nose. By the time he puts it back on, Allura has told everyone to shut up. Or more likely promised to explain it to everyone in person. He takes it off again. It’ll take less than five minutes for everyone to make it to his.

When the door to his room opens, he’s facing away from it, and it takes some awkward midair twisting to see that it’s Keith, who has stopped in his tracks at the sight of the black paladin suspended a couple of feet off the ground, diagonal and, now, twisting like a falling cat without landing.

“Hey,” Shiro waves, and Keith manages to wave slowly back, maybe a little dumbfounded. The sleeves of his jacket are singed black and brown in patches up to his elbows. Before either of them can say anything else, Pidge, suited up and running full speed, slams into Keith’s unarmoured back, followed immediately by Hunk. To his credit, Keith catches himself and doesn’t quite fall flat on his face.

Now there are three pairs of eyes round and startled and fixed on him. He’s beginning to feel a little self conscious. But he’s still turning, so he doesn’t have to see them looking for at least a few seconds.

Or, like, half a second, because of course Pidge immediately scuttles up and starts examining him from every angle, eyes sharp and puzzle-wide. Hunk prods him in the shoulder, and his rotation accelerates.

“How are you doing that?” Pidge asks, as the four of them work together to get Shiro mostly upright and relatively still. Shiro frowns.

“I’m not doing anything, it’s the-”

Keith, Hunk, and Pidge all have their feet firmly on the floor, and as Allura and Coran join them, Shiro realises that if it was the artificial gravity, everything else in the room would be floating along with him.

The fear curling in his chest must’ve shown on his face, because Keith steps closer, concern obvious in the way his hands almost start to reach out and his eyebrows tilt together.

“Where’s Lance?” Shiro asks, because as much as he’d love it to be the case, it’s not like Keith can just pat him on the shoulder and resolve this.

A tinny noise echoes from his helmet; he puts it on and, sure enough, Lance is shouting.

“--trying to tell you! I’m trapped in this stupid room and it’s snowing indoors which by the way makes no sense, and--”

“Lance,” he keeps it simple.

“Oh, thank quiznak, Shiro, you gotta tell Allura there’s something wrong with the castle again!” There isn’t. At least, Shiro’s pretty sure the castle isn’t the problem.

He can’t take his eyes off the burns on Keith’s jacket.

But Lance needs to just yell sometimes, and it’s probably to let him settle down that way at the same time as he gives Shiro more information on the problems at his end.

“The alarm woke me up but my door wouldn’t open, right? Turns out it’s frozen shut! Or, at least, it looks it. It’s not cold? When I touch it I mean, it’s doing that hazy steaming thing ice does so I don’t know what’s going on there. And the floors wet so I couldn’t break it down, and the frost kept spreading and now the ceiling is snowing and no one was listening to me!” A pause, then, in his usual conversational tone, “So what’s up with you?”

He actually laughs.

“I’m ‘up’, is what.” Allura snorts. Keith covers his smile with his hand. “I’m stuck floating about...” He looks. It’s hard to tell from this angle, but, “About a foot and a half off the ground? And Keith set fire to… probably his bedsheets, right?” The flush rising on his cheeks says yes. “Pidge and Hunk are fine, but we’re not on land and there aren’t any plants in the castle.”

“What’s plants got to do wi- ohhhhhh…” It’s obvious when you look at it from that angle. “So this is our lions, uh, doing something?”

“Yes, exactly!” Allura chimes in, clapping her hands together and beaming, head tilted just slightly in that way it always is when she’s talking to someone through the communicators that dangle at her earlobes, or when she's terribly proud of them. In this case it might be both . “It’s an indicator that the five of you have crossed yet another threshold in communing with your lions. You’re beginning to truly reflect their aspects!”

She sounds very pleased, and theoretically it’s great, but Shiro can see a few issues that have already arisen.

He holds the joke in, for now.

“Well, that’s neat, Allura,” Lance is saying through the headsets, “But how do I open my door?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” It isn’t. “It’s the same as piloting your lions. Relax, and open your mind, and you’ll be able to control it just fine.”

It does make sense. Shiro closes his eyes.

“What, like I just ask Blue to fix it?”

“Mm, not quite. If you can’t, we can always send Keith to come melt it for you.”

Shiro takes off his helmet before the indignant screeching begins, drops it onto his bed, and closes his eyes a second time. Separates his consciousness from his body - that’s easy enough, now - and reaches out to that deep rumble that might be the Black Lion’s purr. Dropping into her mind is like dropping into open sky, and always has been, really, even if he didn’t recognise it before. She seems to think it’s really funny that he’s stuck like this, but she relays the information, like a knowledge echo. Just like piloting, he just - gets it, suddenly. It makes sense, now, that he can lift his body through the air. Of course he can.

He drops with relative grace, and it’s honestly a relief to have both feet on solid ground again.

Lance skids past Shiro’s room, then backpedals, grabbing the doorframe. He’s grinning and wild-eyed, elated and dripping wet.

“I just - I can - you guys, I made it rain!”

(A day or so later, when they land on a planet to hide under its thick atmosphere from the Galra fleet, the ground cracks and melts and reforms to the touch of Hunk's fingers, and lush greenery sprouts under Pidge's feet. Which is to say: Hunk sort of falls into the otherwise solid ground and comes back up screaming a minute later, and Pidge is thrown into the air by a rapidly growing mass of vines that almost swallow up the rest of them.

They get the hang of it, though.

Or maybe it’s just supposed to feel like that, another bit of his mind ever-so-slightly rewritten. The twinge of suspicion doesn’t make him feel less like this one particular section of Tokyo is a place where he’s safe, though. Denying that it feels nice seems more than a bit ridiculous.

Maybe it’s trauma. Maybe he only feels safe in the place all the shit happened because it’s messed him up irrecoverably.

That one makes him laugh into his hand. He knows full well how much less tangled and messy and fogged up with loneliness his thoughts have been, since. He knows it helped, even if he also knows he’s allowed to be angry.

Maybe that’s it - something pushing his anger off his shoulders as he goes through that invisible barrier that defines Shibuya’s shape, even when there’s no way to visibly tell he’s there..

But it’s more than that, too. There’s something about how people reflect that feeling, too. It’s not that they notice him more, the moment he crosses into Shibuya, it’s more like - like - no, he can’t figure it out. Accepting the need for people in your life is different from being able to ask strangers on the street why he feels like their attitude towards him has changed. Not that they notice him more, but they’re more thoughtful towards him, he supposes. Like they see a good person instead of a punk kid.

He doesn’t hate it, but he doesn’t get it.

He finds five thousand yen in a single note, on the floor. It blows into his feet out of nowhere, nudges his shoe like it was waiting for him to look down. No one anywhere nearby looks like they’ve lost anything.

Guilty, he slips it into a homeless kid’s cup two minutes later.

A zelkova leaf brushes his cheek, and he catches it. It’s green with early summer.

A dog jumps its front paws onto his knee. Its owner apologises, but he can’t not pet it. It’s small, with big blue eyes and bright blond fur, and it licks his hand.

A whole wedding party laughs past him. The brides’ dresses are different, slightly clashing whites, but he can see the love in their eyes as they climb into the ribbon-clad car. Recognising that makes him blush.

It’s not something he’s thought about much, for himself.

Well, maybe once, a while ago, but that ended before it began. It’s okay.

But there’s something in the air he’s never noticed, and he’s sure it’s not just because he’s looking, now. Like everything here is pushing towards being right for him specifically. More and more, lately. It’s not self-centred, and it doesn’t feel like coincidence.

Inevitably, his feet lead him to the mural. He’s got time before he meets the others, and it’s been a little while, so of course that’s where he winds up.

It’s changed. He knows every detail inside out, so even little changes are something Neku can spot immediately, but this -

He’s laughing before he knows it, shoulders shaking, grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Are you fucking kidding?”

The purple curve fits seamlessly into the rest of the piece, like it belonged there all along, and maybe no-one else would notice the addition, but of course Neku does. More importantly, he recognises the shape. Of course he does. He pushes hair out of his eyes, rubs the back of his neck. Honestly, it’s embarrassing, but he can’t help but feel elated. That’s him, right there, as part of CAT’s work, and even knowing CAT now doesn’t make that feel less important.

The white feathers around the headphones - his headphones, painted by his fucking idol - are new, too, but he’s less sure what they mean.

His phone vibrates in his pocket. He’s going to be late if he doesn’t turn around now, but he wants to look a little longer.

Vector wondered if it was as funny to others to see him reduced to what he is now as it was to him to see his god like this. At the very least, he told himself, he wasn’t as pathetic as the body he was, for some reason, carting home along with his groceries.

Don Thousand was light, barely as heavy as the plastic bags full of food they were counterbalanced with, and, it seemed, barely conscious. Just alive and awake enough to curl clinging, desperate fingers into the fabric of Vector’s jacket, and, every now and then, to say his name again, mumbling it beside his ear with more clarity than someone this broken should have been able to manage. Every time, it echoed through him and left him breathless and - not frightened, he reminded himself, but on high alert. Adrenaline bursts didn't always entail fear, just survival instincts. Still, having to stop and catch his breath and remind himself that he was free and alive and disgustingly human every minute or so meant it took far longer than it should have to get back to Shingetsu's apartment. The carrier bag full of food rubbed a red line into his palm.

He refused to be gentle with the ex-god. Dropped them on the doorstep so he could find his keys and open the door, and half-dragged them inside by the arm to close it. He left them on the floor to put his shopping away, and to start running the taps on his western-style bathtub. No soap or bubbles, just hot water for now, he decided. Pulling the blanket-cloak off the curled-up form of his god, it was clear that was the right decision. It was impossible to tell how long Don Thousand had been trapped in this form, in this world, but they were filthy and too-thin. Looked so human and helpless and naked, with bruises on their chest and scraped knees and dirt marring what might once have been a flawless body.

Vector's scars had all been gone when he woke to find the world rewritten. He'd been fresh and perfect and furious.

He looked down at the being he'd once called his god, and all the wounds that would turn to scars, inside and out.

Disgusting, Vector’s mind provided, and he nodded to himself. He probably shouldn’t have been happy about this, but the smile that curled across his mouth as he carried them through to the bathroom was impossible to hold back. A rebellious little part of him suggested that he just dump them unceremoniously into the steaming water, but the balance of power had already tilted in his favour for once, and he wasn’t about to risk that for a laugh. Being in charge of the situation was fun enough.

Even with Vector holding them upright, Don Thousand's legs were unsteady on the linoleum floor, and they turned to look at him with confusion in their mismatched eyes.

Don Thousand was taller than him, but smiling up at them, Vector felt bigger, somehow.

“Get in the water,” he instructed, loving the way his heart thudded as he gave this once all-powerful being an order. A rush not unlike the feeling he'd refused to call fear.

They blinked once, slowly, comprehension slow, then nodded.

It took them several minutes of quiet hissing and gasps at the heat of the water, but eventually they were mostly submerged in hot water, and as their eyes fluttered closed, they smiled. A tiny curve of lips, but enough to be called a smile. He'd made the right decision, and felt, perhaps, a little proud of this achievement.

“I’m going to leave you alone for a bit,” Vector informed the god. Apparently his voice startled them a little; the water splashed as their eyes opened wide again to stare at him, almost bewildered. “Don’t drown while I’m out of the room.”

Another mute nod, this time accompanied with a downward flick of the eyes, though what that could mean was anyone's guess. He wondered if they had forgotten how to speak, or if it would come back to them in time, and decided to leave the door open, so he would be able to hear any trouble.

First, a cup of water. He returned to the bathroom faster than the Don had expected, or at least, it seemed that way from the splash as they sat up straight to look at him.

Their grip was a little shaky, but Vector wasn't about to tip the cup for them. This was a favour to gain a modicum of power over them, not babysitting, and sure enough, with two hands, they were steady enough to do it themself. They took a tentative sip, and then downed it, holding the glass out for more, and for a moment, in the new spark in their eyes and the angle of their wrist, Vector saw a little of that demanding regality in them again. It was almost a relief, as much as he enjoyed being the one in control. This was still the lost god of Barian, after all. He refilled the glass using the bathtub tap, and their eyes narrowed with comprehension. None of their intelligence had been lost, then, just hidden under layers of dirt like the rest of them. Satisfied that they could hydrate without any more of his help, he left them alone again, heading into the tiny kitchen to decide on some food, and then to dig through his bedroom cupboards for a hairbrush.

If, as he suspected, they hadn’t eaten anything - or at least, anything substantial - since taking this form, plain white rice would be best. Keep that first taste of food simple, let them learn slowly about the few good things that came with a physical, human body. And the starches would be easy for their body to digest, though he wasn't sure where that knowledge came from. No, he knew - hadn't Shingetsu Rei's science classes covered nutrition? He hadn't listened back then, assuming he would never need information so irrelevant to his stone-and-light body, but at least some part of him had retained the information. Convenient now, he supposed.

Vector couldn’t know how his decision to make such a simple food reflected a moment from so long ago. Perhaps if he had, he would have chosen something else, done things differently. Perhaps he would have nudged events towards more similarities.

But he didn’t know, and so he just put his rice cooker on and returned to Don Thousand, and the water that was now mostly grey with filth from their body and hair.

“Get out,” he said, and they frowned at him, clearly unwilling. He waggled the hairbrush at them, not letting them go against his demands in his own damn house. “I need to empty and refill it with clean water, so get out and I can start untangling your hair while it fills again.”

That seemed to be favourable enough to them; Don Thousand stood, water and dirt sluicing off them, and stepped out of the bath, unfazed by their own nudity.

A little fazed by the cold air, though, so more than willing to let Vector wrap them in a towel and sit them down on the bathroom floor.

The last couple of feet of their hair was unsalvageable. It had matted and tangled and looking at it, it was clear that trying to drag a hairbrush through it was pointless, and would only result in pain. There was no argument about simply cutting it off; they seemed as pleased to see it separate from the rest of them as Vector was to throw it out of the window without a care for the effects it might have on his neighbours. There was a low thump as it hit the ground, and one of those wild giggles he hadn't felt in too long now bubbled up out of his chest, brief and fleeting, but a strange, pleasant reminder that he could still be what he once was.

The remainder of Don Thousand’s hair fell just about to their thighs, and Vector had brushed the tangles out of about half of it when a beeping from the other room pulled him away.

“Wait here,” he instructed. “Turn the bath off if it gets full while I’m gone.”

He returned with two plain white onigiri, figuring that cutlery and similar implements could wait.

The Don was stood, towel discarded, about to climb back into the tub. Vector rolled his eyes.

“Sit down.”

They did, and then stared at the food Vector handed them with nothing resembling comprehension in their eyes. He rolled his own, again. Hopefully they would pick things up quickly. He wasn’t about to spend the rest of his forced-human days teaching an ex-god how to live in this place.

For now, though - he bit into his own snack, chewed theatrically, and swallowed, eyes fixed on Don Thousand.

Tentative and slow, suspicion alight in their eyes, they imitated him.

And everything about them lit up.

It wasn’t a smile, so to speak. But there was something refreshed about the way they held themself; the clear, understanding gaze and relaxed shoulders. The slow, calm rise and fall of their chest.

“So, this is how it is to feel alive,” they murmured, and their voice was familiar and strange, echoing off the walls of the tiny bathroom but not rattling Vector’s bones as it had earlier. A real voice, produced with vibrations of flesh and air. There was something about it that shook Vector, but perhaps just the knowledge that this was a human now and not a god. They continued, mouth half-full of food, no need for manners in this space that was just for them and for this new sensation. “Unbelievable. The situation has become very interesting, Vector.”

Vector opened his mouth to respond. And then, something he hadn’t ever expected.

Don Thousand smiled, broad and honest and genuine, and, as they continued to devour the plain, simple rice they’d been given, tears began to spill down their face.

The last time Vector had seen someone cry, the situation had been very different, although, he supposed, he had been feeding Don Thousand that time, too. He’d laugh, if he wasn’t frozen in place, wary and watching a god sob into their now empty hands. The fear he perhaps should have been feeling the entire time finally hit him, constricting his breathing as much as that throne had constricted every part of him. He’d forgotten, somehow, to be afraid of them. Wasn’t he living proof not to let your guard down around someone just because they seemed small, or helpless, or - he hesitated to even think it, but lying to himself had so often had negative outcomes, and honesty might push unwanted feelings away - attractive? Bringing this thing into his home had been a stupid, stupid idea.

Perhaps a distrusting reaction to someone showing this much obvious weakness wasn’t exactly a healthy instinct, but it would have served Vector’s so-called friends well, once.

There was no punchline today, though. Don Thousand’s quiet sobs grew slower and quieter, and ran out entirely, and they uncurled, pulling themself to their feet. With Vector still sat on the floor, they towered over him. There it was. That reminiscent feeling; that familiarity. An echo of somewhere greater, reduced to a small, white-tiled bathroom. This was his god.

They didn’t meet his eyes. Filled their glass of water again, and bit their lip, and took slow, shaky breaths.

“Thank you,” they said, after a while. “I will finish cleaning myself, and, if you are willing to feed me some more, I will eat, and then I will leave.”

Vector stared.

“As much as I would enjoy having you serve me as you once did, it was a relationship that fostered naught but betrayal, and this body’s chemicals induce feelings of shame. Guilt, perhaps. Marginal, but still.”

Ok, that was too much. Laughter tore out of Vector, crumpling him in near-hysteric glee. That gratitude and near-apology, coming from the Don, were too absurd for him to handle. Almost as funny as some of the expressions he’d forced onto Nasch’s face before. He looked up, and this naked, confused human with too much hair looked down, and he found himself laughing so hard tears coursed down his cheeks just as they had the Don’s only moments ago.

--

Three months before that, Vector found himself thrust into Shingetsu's body once more, unable to Bariarphose or access any of his former power. There are advantages to it, but not enough. He had his fill of being weak and fleshy and landlocked already, and the idea that the Astral Emissary would do this has him grinding his teeth.

He's determined not to show his fury. He knows full well that Astral has done this out of kindness, and that only makes it worse. If this were an intentional punishment, it would be far more bearable. But this has been done out of the assumption that he would rather live on as human than die a Barian.

The worst part is that, of course, as usual, Astral was right.

Of course he'd want to live; of course he'd hoped, that moment he let go, that he could be reborn again and meet him again.

But goddamn if he wasn't bitter that Astral was the one who did that for him, out of kindness.

--

When he showed up at school, not really sure where else to go, Yuuma threw himself at him, tackling him in a full-body hug.

"Shingetsu!" he shouted, and Shingetsu clutched onto that human warmth as long as he could. Yuuma told him that he'd missed him, that he wasn't sure, but he was so glad Shingetsu was back too.

He almost choked up. Certainly he wanted to cling to the boy and tell him so many dangerous things, and cry, perhaps. But the word 'too' permeated the wall of reuniting emotions soon enough. The others were stood there, in school uniform much like Shingetsu's own.

Instead of being honest, Vector laughed, mocked them all for getting trapped in human shape just like him.

--

Nasch - Shark - no, Vector corrected himself again. He was going by Ryouga now. Vector would be damned if he'd call him anything but Nasch, though. His other names didn't sound anywhere near as good laced with disgust.

Anyway.

Nasch suggested that the former Barian Emperors take up residence in his human family's home. The others all immediately agreed that it would be best if they stuck together, at least while they adjusted.

Even if they hadn't, Vector could never take up an offer like that from Nasch. Whether or not he was comfortable accepting charity from the guy, the idea of living with him was terrifying.

Aloud, he called it 'a bad idea', and laughed. It wasn't that he was afraid of Nasch, so to speak - just of the idea of trying to reforge relationships with the other Barians. Not that there had been much between any of them before, but he knew he was lucky enough to have anything positive between himself and Yuuma. The others he'd already written up as a lost cause. Easier that way, than to build up hope and see it dashed.

Yuuma would be disappointed, he realised later, stood in Shingetsu's little apartment. Yuuma would have wanted him to push himself and try and do his best.

"Kattobingu," he said to himself.

It still only ever sounded like nonsense to him.

--

Vector didn't see anyone else he knew for two weeks.

--

He was buying groceries when he broke his streak of avoiding anyone he knew. He'd found that perhaps not every last shred of his power had gone - he'd been able to sense and avoid the other Barians up until that point. Or maybe he was just imagining it, and coincidence had kept him secluded.

Sensing and recognising humans was an entirely different matter, so the small, soft hand on his shoulder startled the shit out of him.

Vector told Kotori that exactly, perhaps a little too loud for a small, family-owned store. She leapt half a foot away and flushed pink, hiding her face behind her fingers.

He didn't apologise, staring her down until she either left - preferable - or spoke to him, which was her chosen action.

She followed him through the shop and halfway home, talking at length about school, and how he should really attend more, because if he missed too many classes he wouldn't be able to pass to the next grade. He managed grunts and one-word responses, and eventually she stopped and turned to go a different way.

"You know," she added, before they parted. "Yuuma really misses you."

--

He pushes her words out of his mind as well as he can, and does a terrible job. All he can think about for half of the rest of his walk home is that smile, and the way it felt when their hands touched.

Maybe it's because he had hands on the mind, or maybe it's just because he was distracted by a feeling he was determined to call smug victory - Yuuma missed him, which means he'd managed to dig his claws into the boy's heart one way or the other - but when an arm grabbed him from the bundle of what he'd thought was garbage he didn't immediately pull away and scoff, instead actually turning to look.

The fingers wrapped tight around his wrist were long and elegant and somehow familiar, though he couldn't place how. What he'd assumed was trash as he'd walked past was mostly a blanket of some sort thrown over most of the owner of the hand. Or a cloak, perhaps, he amended, seeing the way it hung off their shoulders and over their head. Their hair was tangled, colour unknowable under dirt, but longer than he'd seen any human's hair grow.

What froze him in place was the eyes. One blue, one red, piercing him with the same familiarity that felt like choking and falling and unadulterated fear. He hadn't seen them in the form they'd taken that most resembled this very human body they inhabited now, but he knew them. They'd ridden alongside his own soul for a while, how could he not know them? It was their power he'd felt more than anyone's; more than Zexal's.

They licked dry, cracked lips with a startlingly red tongue before speaking in a voice so clear it rang to his bones.