#raidenshuga

Image Shuga accidentally confessing his feelings to you while in battle.

The impact hits you first like a punch to the chest, your Juggernaut bucking violently as a Legion shell tears through the plating. The world jolts sideways, alarms blaring, vision shaking behind the HUD. Static crackles across the Para-RAID link as you struggle to keep the controls steady, metal groaning under the strain.

“(Y/N), your vitals are spiking!” Anju shouts, panic bright and clear over comms.

“Her Juggernaut’s smoking! shit! she’s going down!” Theo adds.

But it’s Raiden’s voice that slices through the chaos raw, sharp, immediate.

“Stay with me. Stay with me, dammit!”

You can hear the thrum of his engine, that deeper rumble you can always recognize even in a storm of metallic screams. Through the haze, your eyes drag up to find him, dark silhouette cutting through the smoke. His Juggernaut sprinting over torn ground and scattered Legion metal.

Your machine lurches and collapses against a ruined and crumbling piece of concrete, sparks arcing. Pain radiates down your side, but you grit your teeth and keep your hands on the controls, firing desperately at a Grauwolf unit trying to flank you.

“Still fighting. I’m fine,” you grit.

“You’re bleeding out and half conscious, NOT fine!” Raiden snaps.

There’s nothing soft in his voice now. Nothing held back. Just fear. Real fear. A Legion Tank-class bursts from the dust cloud behind him.

“Raiden, on your six!” Kurena warns.

He pivots, firing in a fluid spin, shredding the Tank-class in a burst of white-hot tracers metal raining down in warped chunks. He doesn’t stop moving. Not once.

He’s making a straight line for you.

Your HUD flickers again as another error code scrolls down the side. A hostile signal pings on your left something crawling closer. You try to swivel the cannon, but the mechanism is jammed.

You suck in a breath. “Raiden..”

“I see it. Hold on.”

His Juggernaut hits the ground between you and the approaching Legion drone, skidding sideways into a barrier of torn earth. His machine shields yours, metal against metal, the sound of impact echoing through both frames as the Legion slams into his side.

He tears it apart with the heavy blade mounted to his chassis his moves are messy, fast, furious. But it’s nothing compared to his voice when he opens the comms again, breath ragged.

“Don’t you ever scare me like this again. Just Don’t”

He cuts himself off, but only for a second.

“I’m coming to you. Just stay awake.”

Anju whispers, “Raiden… slow down..”

“No,” he snaps, and the sheer intensity silences the whole squad. You hear him jump down from his Juggernaut metal boots hitting ruined ground—and the pounding of his steps as he sprints toward your cockpit. Your canopy release is jammed from the hit, emergency hydraulics whining but not unlocking.

“Dammit…” he growls under his breath. “I’ve got it.”

You see his silhouette through the cracks—Raiden bracing himself, muscles straining as he wedges his fingers beneath the warped plating. He lets out a harsh, desperate breath and rips the hatch open with a screech of metal.

Cold air rushes in.

So does Raiden.

He reaches you in one movement, hands sliding under your shoulders, checking your pulse, your breathing, your wounds. His touch shakes. He tries to steady it. He can’t.

“Raiden…” you manage weakly.

And then the words spill out not shouted, not barked but torn from somewhere deep.

“I can’t lose you. Not like this. Not now. Not ever.”

The comms go dead silent.

His forehead presses to yours, sweat dripping onto your cheek, his breath warm as he tries to keep you conscious.

“I should’ve said something sooner. I’ve been trying to ignore it for months, but today” He swallows hard, voice breaking. “Today I realized it’ll kill me if anything happens to you. I… I love you. Damn it.”

A chorus of gasps and stifled snickers bursts through the Para-RAID, because of course the entire Spearhead Squad is still listening.

“Raiden…” Theo’s voice crackles with disbelief. “Did you seriously just confess during a firefight?”

“Nice timing,” Kurena mutters, but she sounds relieved.

“Shut up,” Raiden growls, not looking away from you. Not even for a second.

His hand cups your cheek, thumb brushing away blood smeared along your jaw. His eyes usually so calm, so stoic now burning. Terrified. Determined. Full of everything he’s been choking back.

“You’re not dying here. Not while I can still move.”

He lifts you carefully, cradling you against his chest as sirens and gunfire echo in the distance. His arms are trembling not from effort, but emotion.

In your ear, through the comms, the squad’s voices finally soften.

“Get her out of there, Raiden.”

“We’ve got your backs.”

“Covering your escape.”

Raiden breathes out slowly, steadying himself.

Then he looks down at you again gentler now, but no less fierce.

“You’re everything to me. Keep those eyes on me”

And with the battlefield roaring around you, he carries you toward safety your Juggernaut being left behind, the squad forming a protective barrier, all of them having heard the confession he never meant to let slip.

But he doesn’t regret it.

Not when he holds you a little tighter.

Not when your fingers curl weakly into the fabric of his uniform.

Not when all he wants is to hear you say that you love him too.