estirose

Here's part 2. I was a little delayed as I got caught up in a bit of nostalgia mid-part. (I'm sure long-time readers will be able to figure out where and why.) Part 1 is here.

Fandom: Kamen Rider Kiva
Title: The Unstuck Country (Chapter 5, part 2)
Rating: PG-13 (story so far, due to things in chapter 4)
Warnings: Post-series, so spoilers.
Pairings: None.

While Wataru worked upstairs, Taiga dialed the number for Mio's parents, hoping against hope that they were home. Or at least one of them was. After a tense ring or two, the phone was answered, by a woman. Probably Mio's mother. "Hello?"

"Is this Suzuki Namie-san?" Taiga asked politely.

"Yes?"

"I'm Nobori Taiga, I knew your daughter…."

"Oh! Yes. Thank you for the grave marker." She sounded a little like she was bowing, and her language had become extremely polite.

"I wanted to talk to you about her. Is there a good time to visit?" He might have a reputation as a fearsome king, but he wanted to be polite to Mio's family.

"Um… um. Anytime would be good for you to visit."

Taiga tried to sound a little more friendly, for the woman sounded more flustered than she probably intended. "I'm not after your family. I wanted to get to know about Mio a little more… and I have a little brother who was shamefully never introduced to Fangire culture. An elder is helping, but I know that Mio had a wonderful family, and I hoped that you'd be able to help as well."

"Oh!" Suzuki Namie sounded surprised, and he didn't blame her. "Of course. I can do that. Kurenai Wataru-kun is your little brother, isn't he? I remember Mio spoke of him a lot…."

"I would have been happy to have him become part of your family, if fate hadn't happened," Taiga said with some regret. "Instead, I am here to ask you if you'd help out with teaching him how to be Fangire."

"Of course," she said, and it sounded like she was gaining some composure. "As I said, anytime. I'd be pleased to meet a friend of my daughter's… and, of course, my King." She took a deep breath. "When would you like to come?"

"Would today be all right?" he asked. It was cluttering up Wataru's day, but best not to give her much time to prepare just in case they were working with the Elders or otherwise supported them. Or at least Taiga assumed that the Elders were among those not taking well to Wataru's plan.

"Well, certainly," she replied. "Would you like dinner? We usually have a light one, at seven."

"I don't eat much, but Wataru would appreciate it," Taiga said. He'd keep an eye on Wataru, just in case he got drugged or something.

"Then I'll be pleased to meet you for dinner," Suzuki Namie said. "My husband and I look forward to meeting you and your little brother."

"Thank you," Taiga said, ending the call and putting his phone back in his pocket.

He went to the stairs, but Wataru came to the railing before he could step on the first step. "You called Mio-san's parents, Nii-san?" he asked.

Taiga nodded. "They've agreed to have us for dinner. We'll have to see what we can do to get Mio's friends' names out of them. And you'll have the chance to see how a Fangire family works. It'll help with Dawn and the other Elders."

Wataru nodded. "I don't want to be forced into being Fangire," Wataru said. "I didn't want to be forced into being human, either, once I knew. I've always walked the line between Human and Fangire, even if I didn't know it…."

Looking at Wataru, Taiga could well believe it. Wataru's balance between his two worlds might mean the future for their kind, even if most of them didn't know it yet.

He wouldn't have known it if Wataru hadn't lost his henshin in that forest in front of Mio and himself. He'd been so angry at the ones that were attacking his Queen, and Kiva's appearance had only made it worse. Taiga had attacked Wataru with more force than he needed, because he needed a good target and Kiva had been convenient, having frustrated him more than once.

It was funny, because other than insisting on dating Mio, Wataru had up to that point never been a real target of his anger. Later, of course, because Wataru insisted on staying human - or at least Taiga saw it that way - but not before. Not really before.

There were a lot of things he hadn't seen before, and none of that was Wataru's fault. He'd been clouded by his hatred for Shima, he'd been ready to do anything the Elders and Bishop told him. It was thanks to Wataru that he began to see, and now he was following Wataru's lead of sorts in getting things to where the Fangire hadn't gone before.

"Why don't you relax, Nii-san, while you're here?" Wataru asked. "I think it's pretty safe, and you need a break…."

Kings never really got a break, Taiga knew. But he couldn't quite relax; he took Bishop's file on Mio to Wataru's bed and lay down, reading the pages of notes once again.

Bishop had made plenty of notes about Mio's friends. The was a girl called "Questing Dreamer of the Castle's Tree" that had some wrongness about her. Bishop had made a note to investigate the girl's ancestry, but he hadn't made any other notes about her, other than the fact that she had an older brother. Mio's closest male friends were "In a Tattered Flag, Darkness Saves The Child" and "Ocean Cliffs Slice a Human in Half", but there were other friends as well. A girl named "Innocent Song Played on an Unstrung Harp" and her "unstable" twin sister, "Song in a Painting of the Crimson Moon". The sister of one of her friends was "Sakura Blossoms Made The Chess Piece Smile", and there were others of note; "Blooded Moon Sits in Judgment", "Falling Leaves Ignited by the Bitter Wind", "Haunting Melody of the Crimson Bud", and someone named "An Owl in a Cassette Tape" who was probably pretty young, based on Bishop's notes.

Of course, Bishop's notes hadn't bothered to include any human names, so it didn't do him much good, other than knowing that Mio had a few friends that had known and loved her, as friends tended to do, or at least Taiga hoped they did. That meant that there were several people, possible allies, if they'd felt the same way Mio did about dating humans and such things. He and Wataru would have to feel them out, cautiously, and maybe Mio's parents too. Just in case they were why Mio had no problem dating someone who was presumably human.

And her friends… well, he hoped that the "wrongness" and the "unstable" parts of the descriptions were just Bishop's judgement and that it would turn out that they actually shared Wataru's beliefs, and not that they were mentally unstable. With Bishop, it was hard to tell. He was detail-oriented, but he let his beliefs interfere a lot with his judgments.

Taiga wished Bishop had been far more accepting of Wataru. Things might have gone so much better, and he wouldn't be in the position of trying to get people who were hundreds of years old to suddenly change diet to something else that they hadn't even researched yet.

It would be nice if whoever was behind this would at least let him have the time to actually get that into gear before actually going after him, but probably they were trying to stop this new idea before it got started, before anybody else heard the heretical King's ideas. Or at least that's what he figured it was. The signs disturbingly still pointed towards eliminating Wataru, who was the one who got the idea in the first place, and made sense.

But they still weren't allowed to kill Taiga's little brother. Wataru was the only real kin that he had, and he wasn't going to let that go. Besides, there was still Masao, Taiga's nephew, yet to be born. While he'd like to take Masao's existence as reassurance that Wataru would survive to sire and raise a child, he'd much rather assure it himself.

He went through Bishop's file until it was time to collect Wataru for dinner. The Suzukis lived, technically speaking, in Yokohama, and Mio had only recently moved out, finally. He remembered someone telling him that Fangire usually held by the old customs of keeping the kids housed until they were married off, but things were changing. He couldn't imagine sweet, shy Mio ever wanting to leave, so she'd had to have had some encouragement from her family. Which was a good sign, as far as things went.

After finding a parking space, Taiga found the Suzuki's residence with some help from his phone. He politely went in the gate, and was greeted by Mio's mother at the door. She looked too young to be Mio's mother, but that was a hazard with Fangire aging, and she reminded him of an older Mio that smiled more. "Nobori Taiga. This is Kurenai Wataru. Sorry for any rudeness."

She smiled widely, and bowed. "I am the rude one," she said formally. "Please, both of you, come in."

They exchanged their shoes for slippers, and then Suzuki-san was leading them into her living room. "My husband will be home soon," she said. "Tea?"

"Yes, please," Wataru said, and then looked over at him. "Nii-san?"

Taiga smiled and tried to look as friendly as possible while hoping that they weren't planning on poisoning Wataru. "No, thank you."

He was relieved that Mio's mother knew better than to take umbrage. Even if he made an error in manners, she wouldn't say anything. But if he wanted to persuade her to give him the names and addresses of Mio's friends, he had to be as good a dinner guest as possible, and convince her that nothing was wrong.

Wataru pulled something out of his jacket that had totally escaped Taiga's notice. "Please, take this," he said. "It's a small gift."

Their hostess took it gracefully with both hands. "Thank you," she said, putting it to one side. "I'm very honored that you've chosen us to help educate your little brother on Fangire ways. There are those who think our ways are too modern, though. I'm not sure we're what you had in mind."

Taiga thought of what Bishop had written about the Suzukis. While he hadn't said anything explicit, it had been clear that he disapproved of them but felt that Mio was proper enough, given some prompting and training on his part.

"Bishop did leave me some information. I'm sure that you'd be fine. After all, I couldn't have asked for a finer Queen than your daughter." He smiled, wishing that Mio had made a good Queen, in the end. But he'd loved her, and so had Wataru, and that was what mattered. "And it wouldn't hurt for Wataru to be exposed to at least some Fangire culture. Besides, I have someone teaching him the traditional ways. I just want him to be comfortable with being Fangire."

Suzuki-san ducked her head in embarrassment, and Taiga hoped that these people would be 'modern' enough for his purposes, and that they were actually that way instead of trying to get him to not be so suspicious. Taiga wished he could be less paranoid, because it would be nice to not second-guess everybody's motives.

"He has to find a girl in the near future, after all, and make me an uncle. We've seen it." He hoped that it would make Suzuki-san go all maternal on Wataru; it couldn't hurt, at least.

"Ah!" Suzuki-san smiled. "I know just the girl. She'll never be my Mio, but I'm sure that you'd like her, Wataru-san. She's a sweetheart. Mochizuki Imari. She's got a twin sister, too, but Sae has a bit of a rough tongue on her, and I don't expect that girl will ever find someone."

Sae must have been the unstable girl that Bishop referred to. Imari had to be her sister. Well, at least that was one set of people solved, but that still left quite a few names unpaired from their owners.

"There's Murakami Kaori, and she'd also make a good wife… she's a nice, quiet girl. But I don't think her older brother would let even the King's younger brother marry her. He's very, very protective, especially now that he's in college." Suzuki-san was thoughtful. "It's too bad, because I think he's doing her harm that way, but he's always been protective of her."

That could be the girl who had the "wrongness", but Taiga couldn't be sure. He let Suzuki-san keep talking.

"And there's Rin-chan, but she's too young for you and I don't think you want a girl who performs in a rock band! I told her parents they shouldn't have given her that name…."

"Name?" Wataru asked. Taiga was grateful for the temporary distraction, as Suzuki-san smiled at Wataru.

"Each of us has a true name, Wataru-san, even probably you," Suzuki-san said. "It's who we truly are. Rin-chan's parents made the unfortunate choice to include a cassette tape in her name. Most peoples' names are more traditional, or express what their parents hoped them to be. It's how we named Mio. I… didn't want her trapped in a role." She sniffled at this and quickly wiped her eyes.

"You couldn't have known," Taiga said, wishing he could comfort Mio's mother. He'd never thought as to how Mio's family and friends were grieving for her, how her death had affected them. It was something he should have thought of, but never had a chance, thanks to everything that had happened.

"We're sorry to have caused you pain," Wataru told her. There was such compassion in his voice that Taiga felt totally inadequate. "I…."

"It's not your fault, Wataru-san," the woman said, sniffling. "You loved her, and I know you wouldn't have hurt her, and neither would you, King. Please forgive this silly woman for breaking down in front of you…."

Wataru produced a handkerchief from somewhere in his jacket. "Here," he said, and Suzuki-san took it gratefully, wiping her tears. "I feel like Mio's death shouldn't be in vain, whatever she died for…."

She died for him, but he felt inadequate saying so. What had she been told, when Mio died? What fate had Bishop and the Elders given his quiet Queen?

"Mio-san died protecting Nii-san," Wataru said.

Suzuki-san looked up at him through her tears. staining her mascara. "Then we both mourn," she said simply. "I wish she'd lived."

"So do I," Taiga said. He wished Mio was still with them, still favored Wataru with her shy, sweet smile, was there for him in the end. But she was dead now, and he was stuck hoping that her family would forgive him for allowing her to die in such a senseless manner.

Looking at Wataru, he saw that grief too, the knowledge that had they talked, had he listened, that Mio might be there now to introduce them to her family and her friends. Was there to work together with them on this project of Wataru's, which she would no doubt have supported with her whole heart, because that was the way Mio had been.

The fact that Mio's family still welcomed them, even still grieving for their lost daughter, said something about them and their strength. Taiga wished he'd gotten to be part of that family, got to know them before it was too late, truly understood his Queen and the woman she'd once been.

Looking at them, he wondered if they knew what they meant to him, what Mio meant to him, what family meant to him. Probably didn't. And now he had to ask them for things, knowing full well they might be branded traitor for things they didn't do, just to give Wataru the kindness of friends, and Taiga an advantage.