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estiroseI was just looking back in my archives, and found these old DVD-style fanfic commentaries. I felt a bit nostalgic and grabbed the first fic of any length that I found, which of course happened to be "Discovering the Sun". I tried to skimp on the spoilers, but there are some in there, up to about episode 36 or 37.
Oh, and it's rather long.
Discovering the Sun
by Estirose (Selma McCrory)
c 2006
Chapter 1: Mirror
Kagami Arata shivered in the chill room, despite his long-sleeved shirt and suit jacket. Around him, others of his team swarmed over the crime scene - a crime scene being handled jointly by the agency he was a part of, ZECT, and partly by the police. Mostly because the police weren't familiar with all of the manifestations of Death By Worm. Some, yes. But the Worm was ZECT's speciality, so they were always called in when it was Worm-related.
And thus we open. I tried to make it clear that we weren't dealing with the canon Kabuto universe here, with the police working openly alongside ZECT.
"Kagami-kun!''
"Yes, Misaki-san?" Kagami asked, hurrying over to her side. She had a pair of gloves on, as he did, and was examining the body - refraining from touching it as much as possible.
The body itself was unusually intact, though mostly covered in a pale yellow foam substance that almost looked like it could glow in the dark. Whether the man had died of asphyxiation or a particularly virulent contact poison, Kagami had no desire to find out - at least not first-hand. Maybe, if he was lucky, if they decided he needed to know, he'd be told. Usually, he wasn't unless it was a life-endangering situation.
This was kind of based on a scene in an early episode of Kabuto, though I've forgotten which one. Episode 1? 2?
A lot of stuff was need-to-know in ZECT.
In happier times, ZECT had provided a liaison with the Worms when it came to Worm-human issues. It hadn't really needed the troopers, or to give its staff weapons training until seven years before.
One of the other things that made this AU was making the existance of the Native Worms semi-public. They're still a mystery to Kagami, but not like it was in the series.
Before Kagami had come into ZECT. When Kagami was too busy trying to get into the High School of his choice. His father had always expected him to go into ZECT, and Kagami had always been expecting to follow in his father's footsteps.
That was, of course, before the meteorite-ship had landed, devastating Shibuya, and releasing a whole new variety of Worm.
This still happened in this universe, otherwise I wouldn't need to write the entire storyline.
His watch beeped, reminding him that part of his day was done, and part of it was just beginning. "Misaki-san, could you tell Tadokoro-san that I have to go?" he asked.
Misaki-san gave him a distracted okay, too absorbed in the body to really care where their junior member was going. Of course, she knew anyway.
He'd have just enough time, if he hurried, to stop at his apartment and change clothes. Change his worldview. He was thankful that ZECT wasn't a secret agency or anything, even though the public wasn't quite sure of what exactly they did. And, truth be told, it wasn't exactly an exciting life, though there was a certain cache about working for it. Even if it was only because his father worked there.
The less said about his father, the better.
Yes, the Riku/Ryo/Arata Kagami storyline still happened more or less as in canon.
Kagami jogged over to where his bike was, starting it up and calculating the best course home. If he had to go in his suit, he would, he had before, but best to leave the two halves of his work life separate.
Not that they always did, of course. Misaki-san had made an effort to start coming to where he worked after she found out where it was, when work took her to the same neighborhood. She preferred stopping at ramen carts and soba shops, slurping up her food with a speed he could envy, but she made a special exception for the Bistro.
Kagami sped towards his apartment, dashing in and making a quick change of clothes. He'd soon caught on that keeping his Bistro clothes ready after finishing with his ZECT duties was a good thing. For one thing, he was nearly always running late, and shoving himself into more casual clothes was all that he had time for. He kept a spare set at the Bistro, of course, but it was better not to go charging in there in his suit jacket.
He barely remembered to lock his door, but did, his keys jangling as he raced back out to his motorcycle. He then zoomed off, making it to his parking place a block from his job in record time. He was fortunate that no police officer had investigated the speeding; while he enjoyed a small protection when he was doing his duties as a member of ZECT, he wasn't on duty now.
Locking down the motorcycle, he jogged to the Bistro La Salle, the small cafe where he worked at his second job. It was definitely far less hazardous than his first job, unless snipes about his timeliness record were taken into account. It wasn't anything he could do about, anyway, since ZECT wasn't too considerate about second jobs.
I wanted Kagami to still have the connection to the Bistro, and therefore, I came up with his reasoning being "I really want to quit ZECT but I want to be in ZECT too, so I'll rebel and work only part time there." Yes, confused reasoning, much?
If it hadn't been for that second job, however, Kagami would have probably gone nuts. It wasn't bad thing to be privy to things the general public didn't know about, but ZECT superiors had insisted on assigning him to a field team. A field team faced much more danger than someone working in-house. The only thing that made it good was that he got to see more than someone working in-house.
He hurried into the Bistro La Salle, quickly surveying the room. For the moment, they had no customers. He spotted Takemiya-san conversing with Hiyori, his morning-shift coworker. Kagami wondered briefly if Hiyori was going to stay for the afternoon shift; she sometimes did, especially when Takemiya-san thought that the afternoon rush was too much for Kagami.
"Hi," he said as the two of them looked over at him. "I'm here."
Hiyori rolled her eyes, while Takemiya-san gave him a wan smile. Kagami hoped he'd never get to the point where Takemiya-san felt that she had to let him go. If she let him go, chances were good that he'd have to go full-time into working for ZECT, something he wasn't sure he wanted to do.
But Takemiya-san let it go. "I'm expecting a heavy shift," she said simply, and Kagami was glad that he wasn't truly late or anything. Tadokoro-san was willing to let him go off even when the investigation wasn't complete; he didn't insist on Kagami staying, unless it was critical. That had happened once or twice, and by some miracle, Takemiya-san had taken it in stride.
Then again, Takemiya-san took a large amount of things in stride, including Kagami and Hiyori. In fact, from the look on her face sometimes, she took pride in her eccentric staff.
Like she does in the series.
Hiyori turned to take care of a table that had just been cleared, and Kagami made use of the distraction to hurry into the kitchen and get his apron. He was glad not to have to change; just putting on the simple apron seemed to cause him no amount of trouble.
It was still better than working full-time at ZECT. Takemiya-san didn't care who his father was. Well, his father was apparently a regular customer, but only when he wasn't there. But beyond that, Takemiya-san didn't really know what ZECT was, and didn't care that Kagami's father was extremely powerful in the organization.
He hurried out, joining Hiyori in the setting up of tables before the afternoon rush.
* & * & *
Tadokoro-san was growling at everybody in his path. Kagami let his supervisor by, hoping that by sheer unimportantness, he'd escape the man's wrath. Tadokoro-san was middle-aged and someone Kagami never dared cross; if Tadokoro-san wanted him to do something, he did it, the same way he would if Misaki-san did.
He supposed this was related to the corpse the previous day. "Potential host," one of the troopers loosely assigned to the unit had remarked within his earshot, either not aware that he could hear, or assuming that Kagami had clearance.
Potential host. Someone that ZECT thought could pair with one of the Zecters, semi-intelligent machines created by the Worms to protect both their own kind and the humans they shared the planet with. This one had no doubt been on the way to a meet with the staff and the Zecter to see if he was compatible, or had just been about his business with the unfortunate luck to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Misaki-san," he wondered out loud to the ZECT technician, "Do they think it's an alien, or... rogue?" Maybe if he asked casually and directly enough, Misaki-san would tell him. If she knew. Sometimes even she didn't know.
"They're saying alien," Misaki said just as casually. "It doesn't have the hallmark of any of the natives. She looked at the new corpse. "What troubles me is this one is targeting potential hosts."
Kagami nodded. He'd never tested for being a host, mostly because for some reason he'd never been allowed to test. He just hoped someday that he'd be allowed to. He'd heard rumors that it was terrible being a host and Tadokoro-san was blocking any of them from being tested. Other rumors were that his own testing was being prevented by someone much higher up with a grudge against him.
There's a reason for this, but it's not what he thinks. Those who have seen episodes past 20 will know why.
He wasn't sure, since he'd never seen a Zecter in action. Currently, the rumor was that several of them were without hosts, thus most ZECT employees had never seen one in action. There were also rumors that the Worms, the ones who had helped humankind develop the Zecters, were becoming impatient with ZECT's inability to find hosts.
And, actually, they were. It doesn't help that Riku developed a protective streak and is protecting his son from being a host.
And, heaven knew, humankind needed the Zecters in action. Ever since the Shibuya meteorite had come down, bringing its own cache of Alien Worms, both humans and Worms had been hard-pressed to counter the invasion.
The Worms of this planet, who had been awakened after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were humanity's friend. Very few disputed that. However, he knew the Japanese government had wished that their non-human partners had bothered to tell them that they weren't native to Earth, and that their cousins could come back at any time.
I don't know if the series goes into when the Natives arrived, so I made up my own storyline here.
But the Worms, the Worm, were closed-mouthed about a lot of things. Kagami had, like the vast majority of the population of Japan or the rest of the world, never met a Worm in its native form. As a member of ZECT, he'd run across undisguised Worms, but they were always ones to fight against, not to fight with. Like their invading cousins, the 'native' populations of Worms preferred a human form, to hide among and blend with the natives. Sometimes Kagami wondered if Tadokoro-san or Misaki-san were Worms, but he'd never ask. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.
Yes, that is a deliberate reference.
And they'd never tell, if they were.
"Have they...." he stopped short. It was possible that a Worm had hacked into ZECT, using the skills of one they'd killed, but no Worm could penetrate headquarters without the staff knowing that it was a Worm.
"We don't know," she said, shaking her head. Kagami gave her a brief nod before turning back to grab some equipment, make it look like he was doing something useful.
And as he did, something buzzed over his head. Was it a bug? It seemed awfully large to be one, and Worms were a little larger than human-sized, not that small. "Misaki-san," he called, gaining her attention. When she came over, he pointed at it. "What's that?"
Misaki-san just stared. "It's a Zecter," she said, as if unable to believe her eyes. "It must be looking for its host."
No, I don't know how Misaki knows, it was useful to have her know.
"Or mourning for him?" Kagami asked, thinking of the dead man.
"Or mourning for him," Misaki said. "But I'm guessing it's looking for its host."
Kagami nodded. "Right." He moved off, away from Misaki-san, towards the Zecter, in an almost roundabout fashion. He didn't want to scare it. He wanted to be with it. Have it choose him.
Some of the canon Kagami comes in here, though I suspect some of his eagerness might be not his own. As in, I think that the Worms might have done something with the poor guy.
But the Zecter, as if sensing his presence, flew off. Kagami stared at where it had been, just a minute before.
He stared after it. He wanted to shout "I wasn't going to hurt you!" at the Zecter, as if it was going to do any good. Zecters picked who they wanted to pick, sometimes regardless of the host's feelings on the matter, or so he'd been told. Nobody he'd ever talked to had dealt with a Zecter, so it was a kind of a common wisdom, a bit of training. An unwilling host could occur, bundle them up to headquarters to see if the host could be persuaded to fight or if headquarters needed to convince the Zecter to choose another host.
I'd later deal with/change this a bit.
And the Zecter he'd just met didn't want to deal with him anyway. His head drooped almost unconsciously. Maybe he'd gone through some screening somewhere that they'd decided he was unfit as host to a Zecter, or maybe he was naturally repellant to Zecters. But then again, if ZECT had let every agent know that they could be chosen as a potential host, why would they admit him if he wasn't meant to be?
Maybe he just hadn't been chosen yet. That was it. Maybe they were hoping that he'd be chosen by one, but they were waiting for something. He smiled, feeling infinitely better as he walked back to the scene.
He's on the right track here. I suspect that he was assigned to Tadokoro so Tadokoro could keep an eye on him, because of his future.
He was relieved when Misaki-san announced they were nearly done. Kagami hated standing around; it made him twitchy. Neither his schoolteachers nor his father had ever been able to correct that habit. Not that being enclosed in the dark, cramped space of the van was much better, but it was better than standing around. He seemed, or at least felt, that he had more patience when he was in the van. Maybe he felt more useful. At least he was permitted to do things there.
Most of the time, he was standing around, waiting for Misaki-san or Todokoro-san to need an extra hand. One of the troopers could have done his job, and far better than how he did it, or at least he felt that way sometimes. Once again, he had the sense that they were waiting for something, but he wasn't quite sure what. He wasn't even sure that they knew what he was waiting for.
In the meantime, he'd stand around, wait, and feel far more useful at the Bistro. There, he was one employee out of two, essential to the well-being of the business. Here, he was just a junior flunky spending a lot of time waiting for his chance to shine.
Tadokoro-san was a good boss as bosses went, but he hated waiting. It may have been his lack of patience that kept him from rising up on the ladder, but that impatience was part of him. He'd learn to tame it, they didn't stand a chance.
He noticed a briefcase, one of the thick metal padded ones, sitting just inside where he usually sat when he wasn't working on one of the computers or otherwise monitoring things. It was unlocked, so he opened the lid.
Foam padding surrounded a metal belt with a wide spot in the front middle, a belt buckle that didn't buckle. The receiving point for a belt-based Zecter, no doubt. There were supposedly belt-based Zecters, wrist-based Zecters, and weapon-based Zecters. He had no idea which kind the Zecter he'd seen was, but he touched the belt reverently. A belt here meant that someone thought a Zecter's choice of host was imminent and that they needed to be there, to provide the belt if needed and to send the lucky soul to headquarters.
The belt sparked as he ran his fingers against the surface, and he yelped as he snached his fingers away. He looked around, but neither Tadokoro-san or Misaki-san seemed to be in earshot. He quickly closed the case, hoping they didn't notice he'd opened it. He wondered if the belt was as intelligent as the Zecter and that he'd just experienced rejection, or it was some sort of alarm. Or even static electricity.
This is pretty much out of the series as well, this scene.
In any case, it was obvious that he wasn't going to be handling this belt, other than maybe getting lucky and quickly handing the belt to its new owner. He probably wouldn't even get that lucky, it was probably Misaki-san or Todokoro-san who got that duty, he'd probably be stuck reassuring the new person.
On the other hand, it occured to him that it wasn't so bad. If he could make friends with a Zecter's host, he would at least be around a Zecter, see what they did. That would be cool. And it might get him considered for a Zecter of his own, which would be good too.
He really doesn't know his future, which is a good thing, and this sets up (or continues to set up) the foreshadowing for later chapters.
Of course, this depended on Tadokoro-san's team finding the new host, which wasn't a given, especially if they didn't want to be found. Headquarters hadn't said what to do if the new host was a reluctant host, just that they needed to be brought to headquarters. Kagami wondered briefly if Headquarters expected them to be sedated or what, and then shivered. Maybe he really didn't want to know.
He'd find out later, which I didn't foreshadow here because I didn't know the story was going to go that way....
He would choose to be a host, though, and he was in ZECT, so no problem there. If he was chosen, he'd be whisked off to headquarters, they'd acknoweldge the fact, and then he'd be free to do... well, whatever hosts did for ZECT. Got called to fight Worms likely.
Sometimes Kagami got sick of not knowing about that, especially since he sometimes dreamed of becoming a host. He'd woken up one morning still grasping his imaginary Zecter, and was glad he lived alone. He'd have been mortified if he'd had to explain that.
Part of him wishes he was a host. I still think the Worms in this reality had something to do with that.
Misaki-san climbed into the van, followed shortly by Tadokoro-san. Probably some analysis to be done, he realized, before they took off. He had a good hour or so before he had to leave for his Bistro La Salle shift, and he could only hope that something exciting would happen before he fell asleep.
Falling asleep... well, he probably wouldn't be kicked out of ZECT for it, not with his father, but it wasn't something that was very professional, and if he hoped to make anything of himself while he was in ZECT, he probably wanted to avoid taking a nap in the van.
But without realizing it, he closed his eyes. Or maybe he did realize it, but only intended to keep them shut for a moment.
The next thing he knew was that Misaki-san was shaking him roughly. He stammered out an apology.
"Your other job," she said firmly. He nodded, running out of the van, back to his own bike.
At least Misaki cares.
He hurried towards his bike, narrowly missing another man. He refrained from snapping at the man; after all, he was in a hurry, he other man wasn't. However, he had to take a second look.
The young man he'd crashed into was about his age, maybe a bit older. His hair was a bit untidy, curls going where they shouldn't, making a mess of things. He was wearing wooden sandals, ones that Kagami had rarely seen on a man of his own age. A grey top that recalled earlier times graced his torso, and he held a bowl as if nothing in the world mattered to him.
In other words, Kagami had nearly collided with a weirdo. Who knows what would have happened if he'd run into the guy? Given his intense concentration on keeping the bowl straight, he'd probably lay into Kagami, either physically or verbally. And that wasn't what Kagami needed.
As Kagami watched, another man, not watching, darted around the corner. "Watch out!" he called.
But even as he shouted his warning, the man with the bowl dodged. Without looking to see where the running man was, he stepped to one side, careful not to spill whatever was in there. The running man continued unheeding, and the man with the bowl stopped, turned around, and smiled. Then he turned back as if nothing had happened, and continued on.
"Weirdo," Kagami muttered.
An altered version of Kagami's first meeting with Tendou (we'll really meet him next chapter) that sets up the relationship between the two.
tbc....
Oh, and it's rather long.
Discovering the Sun
by Estirose (Selma McCrory)
c 2006
Chapter 1: Mirror
Kagami Arata shivered in the chill room, despite his long-sleeved shirt and suit jacket. Around him, others of his team swarmed over the crime scene - a crime scene being handled jointly by the agency he was a part of, ZECT, and partly by the police. Mostly because the police weren't familiar with all of the manifestations of Death By Worm. Some, yes. But the Worm was ZECT's speciality, so they were always called in when it was Worm-related.
And thus we open. I tried to make it clear that we weren't dealing with the canon Kabuto universe here, with the police working openly alongside ZECT.
"Kagami-kun!''
"Yes, Misaki-san?" Kagami asked, hurrying over to her side. She had a pair of gloves on, as he did, and was examining the body - refraining from touching it as much as possible.
The body itself was unusually intact, though mostly covered in a pale yellow foam substance that almost looked like it could glow in the dark. Whether the man had died of asphyxiation or a particularly virulent contact poison, Kagami had no desire to find out - at least not first-hand. Maybe, if he was lucky, if they decided he needed to know, he'd be told. Usually, he wasn't unless it was a life-endangering situation.
This was kind of based on a scene in an early episode of Kabuto, though I've forgotten which one. Episode 1? 2?
A lot of stuff was need-to-know in ZECT.
In happier times, ZECT had provided a liaison with the Worms when it came to Worm-human issues. It hadn't really needed the troopers, or to give its staff weapons training until seven years before.
One of the other things that made this AU was making the existance of the Native Worms semi-public. They're still a mystery to Kagami, but not like it was in the series.
Before Kagami had come into ZECT. When Kagami was too busy trying to get into the High School of his choice. His father had always expected him to go into ZECT, and Kagami had always been expecting to follow in his father's footsteps.
That was, of course, before the meteorite-ship had landed, devastating Shibuya, and releasing a whole new variety of Worm.
This still happened in this universe, otherwise I wouldn't need to write the entire storyline.
His watch beeped, reminding him that part of his day was done, and part of it was just beginning. "Misaki-san, could you tell Tadokoro-san that I have to go?" he asked.
Misaki-san gave him a distracted okay, too absorbed in the body to really care where their junior member was going. Of course, she knew anyway.
He'd have just enough time, if he hurried, to stop at his apartment and change clothes. Change his worldview. He was thankful that ZECT wasn't a secret agency or anything, even though the public wasn't quite sure of what exactly they did. And, truth be told, it wasn't exactly an exciting life, though there was a certain cache about working for it. Even if it was only because his father worked there.
The less said about his father, the better.
Yes, the Riku/Ryo/Arata Kagami storyline still happened more or less as in canon.
Kagami jogged over to where his bike was, starting it up and calculating the best course home. If he had to go in his suit, he would, he had before, but best to leave the two halves of his work life separate.
Not that they always did, of course. Misaki-san had made an effort to start coming to where he worked after she found out where it was, when work took her to the same neighborhood. She preferred stopping at ramen carts and soba shops, slurping up her food with a speed he could envy, but she made a special exception for the Bistro.
Kagami sped towards his apartment, dashing in and making a quick change of clothes. He'd soon caught on that keeping his Bistro clothes ready after finishing with his ZECT duties was a good thing. For one thing, he was nearly always running late, and shoving himself into more casual clothes was all that he had time for. He kept a spare set at the Bistro, of course, but it was better not to go charging in there in his suit jacket.
He barely remembered to lock his door, but did, his keys jangling as he raced back out to his motorcycle. He then zoomed off, making it to his parking place a block from his job in record time. He was fortunate that no police officer had investigated the speeding; while he enjoyed a small protection when he was doing his duties as a member of ZECT, he wasn't on duty now.
Locking down the motorcycle, he jogged to the Bistro La Salle, the small cafe where he worked at his second job. It was definitely far less hazardous than his first job, unless snipes about his timeliness record were taken into account. It wasn't anything he could do about, anyway, since ZECT wasn't too considerate about second jobs.
I wanted Kagami to still have the connection to the Bistro, and therefore, I came up with his reasoning being "I really want to quit ZECT but I want to be in ZECT too, so I'll rebel and work only part time there." Yes, confused reasoning, much?
If it hadn't been for that second job, however, Kagami would have probably gone nuts. It wasn't bad thing to be privy to things the general public didn't know about, but ZECT superiors had insisted on assigning him to a field team. A field team faced much more danger than someone working in-house. The only thing that made it good was that he got to see more than someone working in-house.
He hurried into the Bistro La Salle, quickly surveying the room. For the moment, they had no customers. He spotted Takemiya-san conversing with Hiyori, his morning-shift coworker. Kagami wondered briefly if Hiyori was going to stay for the afternoon shift; she sometimes did, especially when Takemiya-san thought that the afternoon rush was too much for Kagami.
"Hi," he said as the two of them looked over at him. "I'm here."
Hiyori rolled her eyes, while Takemiya-san gave him a wan smile. Kagami hoped he'd never get to the point where Takemiya-san felt that she had to let him go. If she let him go, chances were good that he'd have to go full-time into working for ZECT, something he wasn't sure he wanted to do.
But Takemiya-san let it go. "I'm expecting a heavy shift," she said simply, and Kagami was glad that he wasn't truly late or anything. Tadokoro-san was willing to let him go off even when the investigation wasn't complete; he didn't insist on Kagami staying, unless it was critical. That had happened once or twice, and by some miracle, Takemiya-san had taken it in stride.
Then again, Takemiya-san took a large amount of things in stride, including Kagami and Hiyori. In fact, from the look on her face sometimes, she took pride in her eccentric staff.
Like she does in the series.
Hiyori turned to take care of a table that had just been cleared, and Kagami made use of the distraction to hurry into the kitchen and get his apron. He was glad not to have to change; just putting on the simple apron seemed to cause him no amount of trouble.
It was still better than working full-time at ZECT. Takemiya-san didn't care who his father was. Well, his father was apparently a regular customer, but only when he wasn't there. But beyond that, Takemiya-san didn't really know what ZECT was, and didn't care that Kagami's father was extremely powerful in the organization.
He hurried out, joining Hiyori in the setting up of tables before the afternoon rush.
* & * & *
Tadokoro-san was growling at everybody in his path. Kagami let his supervisor by, hoping that by sheer unimportantness, he'd escape the man's wrath. Tadokoro-san was middle-aged and someone Kagami never dared cross; if Tadokoro-san wanted him to do something, he did it, the same way he would if Misaki-san did.
He supposed this was related to the corpse the previous day. "Potential host," one of the troopers loosely assigned to the unit had remarked within his earshot, either not aware that he could hear, or assuming that Kagami had clearance.
Potential host. Someone that ZECT thought could pair with one of the Zecters, semi-intelligent machines created by the Worms to protect both their own kind and the humans they shared the planet with. This one had no doubt been on the way to a meet with the staff and the Zecter to see if he was compatible, or had just been about his business with the unfortunate luck to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Misaki-san," he wondered out loud to the ZECT technician, "Do they think it's an alien, or... rogue?" Maybe if he asked casually and directly enough, Misaki-san would tell him. If she knew. Sometimes even she didn't know.
"They're saying alien," Misaki said just as casually. "It doesn't have the hallmark of any of the natives. She looked at the new corpse. "What troubles me is this one is targeting potential hosts."
Kagami nodded. He'd never tested for being a host, mostly because for some reason he'd never been allowed to test. He just hoped someday that he'd be allowed to. He'd heard rumors that it was terrible being a host and Tadokoro-san was blocking any of them from being tested. Other rumors were that his own testing was being prevented by someone much higher up with a grudge against him.
There's a reason for this, but it's not what he thinks. Those who have seen episodes past 20 will know why.
He wasn't sure, since he'd never seen a Zecter in action. Currently, the rumor was that several of them were without hosts, thus most ZECT employees had never seen one in action. There were also rumors that the Worms, the ones who had helped humankind develop the Zecters, were becoming impatient with ZECT's inability to find hosts.
And, actually, they were. It doesn't help that Riku developed a protective streak and is protecting his son from being a host.
And, heaven knew, humankind needed the Zecters in action. Ever since the Shibuya meteorite had come down, bringing its own cache of Alien Worms, both humans and Worms had been hard-pressed to counter the invasion.
The Worms of this planet, who had been awakened after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were humanity's friend. Very few disputed that. However, he knew the Japanese government had wished that their non-human partners had bothered to tell them that they weren't native to Earth, and that their cousins could come back at any time.
I don't know if the series goes into when the Natives arrived, so I made up my own storyline here.
But the Worms, the Worm, were closed-mouthed about a lot of things. Kagami had, like the vast majority of the population of Japan or the rest of the world, never met a Worm in its native form. As a member of ZECT, he'd run across undisguised Worms, but they were always ones to fight against, not to fight with. Like their invading cousins, the 'native' populations of Worms preferred a human form, to hide among and blend with the natives. Sometimes Kagami wondered if Tadokoro-san or Misaki-san were Worms, but he'd never ask. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.
Yes, that is a deliberate reference.
And they'd never tell, if they were.
"Have they...." he stopped short. It was possible that a Worm had hacked into ZECT, using the skills of one they'd killed, but no Worm could penetrate headquarters without the staff knowing that it was a Worm.
"We don't know," she said, shaking her head. Kagami gave her a brief nod before turning back to grab some equipment, make it look like he was doing something useful.
And as he did, something buzzed over his head. Was it a bug? It seemed awfully large to be one, and Worms were a little larger than human-sized, not that small. "Misaki-san," he called, gaining her attention. When she came over, he pointed at it. "What's that?"
Misaki-san just stared. "It's a Zecter," she said, as if unable to believe her eyes. "It must be looking for its host."
No, I don't know how Misaki knows, it was useful to have her know.
"Or mourning for him?" Kagami asked, thinking of the dead man.
"Or mourning for him," Misaki said. "But I'm guessing it's looking for its host."
Kagami nodded. "Right." He moved off, away from Misaki-san, towards the Zecter, in an almost roundabout fashion. He didn't want to scare it. He wanted to be with it. Have it choose him.
Some of the canon Kagami comes in here, though I suspect some of his eagerness might be not his own. As in, I think that the Worms might have done something with the poor guy.
But the Zecter, as if sensing his presence, flew off. Kagami stared at where it had been, just a minute before.
He stared after it. He wanted to shout "I wasn't going to hurt you!" at the Zecter, as if it was going to do any good. Zecters picked who they wanted to pick, sometimes regardless of the host's feelings on the matter, or so he'd been told. Nobody he'd ever talked to had dealt with a Zecter, so it was a kind of a common wisdom, a bit of training. An unwilling host could occur, bundle them up to headquarters to see if the host could be persuaded to fight or if headquarters needed to convince the Zecter to choose another host.
I'd later deal with/change this a bit.
And the Zecter he'd just met didn't want to deal with him anyway. His head drooped almost unconsciously. Maybe he'd gone through some screening somewhere that they'd decided he was unfit as host to a Zecter, or maybe he was naturally repellant to Zecters. But then again, if ZECT had let every agent know that they could be chosen as a potential host, why would they admit him if he wasn't meant to be?
Maybe he just hadn't been chosen yet. That was it. Maybe they were hoping that he'd be chosen by one, but they were waiting for something. He smiled, feeling infinitely better as he walked back to the scene.
He's on the right track here. I suspect that he was assigned to Tadokoro so Tadokoro could keep an eye on him, because of his future.
He was relieved when Misaki-san announced they were nearly done. Kagami hated standing around; it made him twitchy. Neither his schoolteachers nor his father had ever been able to correct that habit. Not that being enclosed in the dark, cramped space of the van was much better, but it was better than standing around. He seemed, or at least felt, that he had more patience when he was in the van. Maybe he felt more useful. At least he was permitted to do things there.
Most of the time, he was standing around, waiting for Misaki-san or Todokoro-san to need an extra hand. One of the troopers could have done his job, and far better than how he did it, or at least he felt that way sometimes. Once again, he had the sense that they were waiting for something, but he wasn't quite sure what. He wasn't even sure that they knew what he was waiting for.
In the meantime, he'd stand around, wait, and feel far more useful at the Bistro. There, he was one employee out of two, essential to the well-being of the business. Here, he was just a junior flunky spending a lot of time waiting for his chance to shine.
Tadokoro-san was a good boss as bosses went, but he hated waiting. It may have been his lack of patience that kept him from rising up on the ladder, but that impatience was part of him. He'd learn to tame it, they didn't stand a chance.
He noticed a briefcase, one of the thick metal padded ones, sitting just inside where he usually sat when he wasn't working on one of the computers or otherwise monitoring things. It was unlocked, so he opened the lid.
Foam padding surrounded a metal belt with a wide spot in the front middle, a belt buckle that didn't buckle. The receiving point for a belt-based Zecter, no doubt. There were supposedly belt-based Zecters, wrist-based Zecters, and weapon-based Zecters. He had no idea which kind the Zecter he'd seen was, but he touched the belt reverently. A belt here meant that someone thought a Zecter's choice of host was imminent and that they needed to be there, to provide the belt if needed and to send the lucky soul to headquarters.
The belt sparked as he ran his fingers against the surface, and he yelped as he snached his fingers away. He looked around, but neither Tadokoro-san or Misaki-san seemed to be in earshot. He quickly closed the case, hoping they didn't notice he'd opened it. He wondered if the belt was as intelligent as the Zecter and that he'd just experienced rejection, or it was some sort of alarm. Or even static electricity.
This is pretty much out of the series as well, this scene.
In any case, it was obvious that he wasn't going to be handling this belt, other than maybe getting lucky and quickly handing the belt to its new owner. He probably wouldn't even get that lucky, it was probably Misaki-san or Todokoro-san who got that duty, he'd probably be stuck reassuring the new person.
On the other hand, it occured to him that it wasn't so bad. If he could make friends with a Zecter's host, he would at least be around a Zecter, see what they did. That would be cool. And it might get him considered for a Zecter of his own, which would be good too.
He really doesn't know his future, which is a good thing, and this sets up (or continues to set up) the foreshadowing for later chapters.
Of course, this depended on Tadokoro-san's team finding the new host, which wasn't a given, especially if they didn't want to be found. Headquarters hadn't said what to do if the new host was a reluctant host, just that they needed to be brought to headquarters. Kagami wondered briefly if Headquarters expected them to be sedated or what, and then shivered. Maybe he really didn't want to know.
He'd find out later, which I didn't foreshadow here because I didn't know the story was going to go that way....
He would choose to be a host, though, and he was in ZECT, so no problem there. If he was chosen, he'd be whisked off to headquarters, they'd acknoweldge the fact, and then he'd be free to do... well, whatever hosts did for ZECT. Got called to fight Worms likely.
Sometimes Kagami got sick of not knowing about that, especially since he sometimes dreamed of becoming a host. He'd woken up one morning still grasping his imaginary Zecter, and was glad he lived alone. He'd have been mortified if he'd had to explain that.
Part of him wishes he was a host. I still think the Worms in this reality had something to do with that.
Misaki-san climbed into the van, followed shortly by Tadokoro-san. Probably some analysis to be done, he realized, before they took off. He had a good hour or so before he had to leave for his Bistro La Salle shift, and he could only hope that something exciting would happen before he fell asleep.
Falling asleep... well, he probably wouldn't be kicked out of ZECT for it, not with his father, but it wasn't something that was very professional, and if he hoped to make anything of himself while he was in ZECT, he probably wanted to avoid taking a nap in the van.
But without realizing it, he closed his eyes. Or maybe he did realize it, but only intended to keep them shut for a moment.
The next thing he knew was that Misaki-san was shaking him roughly. He stammered out an apology.
"Your other job," she said firmly. He nodded, running out of the van, back to his own bike.
At least Misaki cares.
He hurried towards his bike, narrowly missing another man. He refrained from snapping at the man; after all, he was in a hurry, he other man wasn't. However, he had to take a second look.
The young man he'd crashed into was about his age, maybe a bit older. His hair was a bit untidy, curls going where they shouldn't, making a mess of things. He was wearing wooden sandals, ones that Kagami had rarely seen on a man of his own age. A grey top that recalled earlier times graced his torso, and he held a bowl as if nothing in the world mattered to him.
In other words, Kagami had nearly collided with a weirdo. Who knows what would have happened if he'd run into the guy? Given his intense concentration on keeping the bowl straight, he'd probably lay into Kagami, either physically or verbally. And that wasn't what Kagami needed.
As Kagami watched, another man, not watching, darted around the corner. "Watch out!" he called.
But even as he shouted his warning, the man with the bowl dodged. Without looking to see where the running man was, he stepped to one side, careful not to spill whatever was in there. The running man continued unheeding, and the man with the bowl stopped, turned around, and smiled. Then he turned back as if nothing had happened, and continued on.
"Weirdo," Kagami muttered.
An altered version of Kagami's first meeting with Tendou (we'll really meet him next chapter) that sets up the relationship between the two.
tbc....
