2022-04-19: Warrior's Pride

• Cutscene: Warrior's Pride
• Cast: Ikumi Kaidou, Soldato J-002
• Where: 3G Blue Orbital Base
• Date: 0096-04-19
• Summary: Soldato J-002 and Kaidou have a conversation in the only manner the Red Planet really understands.

---

The flash of light from inside Renais' medical room was exactly what Kaidou had expected. The instant he heard the distinctive sound of the ES Window, he opened the door to see exactly what he knew he would see.

J had not changed. The same armor, the same bird-beak helmet, the same multicolored plumage hair, the same scarf rippling in the pressure change from the Window. The same stance - always ready for a fight, no matter where.

"Arma."

"J." Kaidou pushed off the doorframe and walked inside. The beeping and hissing of the machines was the only noise as the two stared each other down.

"I'm here to take her home."

Kaidou laughed. "Home, huh. Where's home, J?"

J's face was passive, static. "The J-Ark."

"The J-Ark isn't a home, J." Kaidou crossed his arms. Even now J was so much taller than he was. He had to look up to stare at the looming bird-warrior. It was sort of novel not being the tallest person in the room.

"The J-Ark is my home. The J-Ark is her home. The J-Ark is your home."

"You don't even know what that word means." Kaidou didn't blink. "You're parroting it from a dictionary. Or from the rest of 3G. They don't know you like I do. Even Guy doesn't know you like I do. They all assume you understand subtext just fine, understand double meanings, understand things that they take for granted. They assume you had a human life or near one at some point."

"Home is the place we live."

Kaidou shook his head. "That's exactly what I mean. J-Ark isn't the place you live, J. It's your tomb."

"I'm still alive."

"Are you, J?" Kaidou's gaze grew hard. "How many times, now? How many times have you felt that you had nothing to live for but duty? You're alive, physically, but you don't know what that word means, either. You don't know what living means. You've never lived."

"Arma-"

"Kaidou." Kaidou stepped forward, almost directly under the tip of J's nose, so he could see into the helmet. Into those bright blue eyes, those startlingly pretty eyes that he had only seen once before - during a suicide attack to save his own life. "My name is Ikumi Kaidou. I am a warrior of Earth and Red Planet alike."

"I know you're a warrior, Arma."

"Kaidou." Kaidou repeats, with emphasis, "And this is what I mean. You don't understand what it means that I say my name is Kaidou. You don't understand what that declaration is. All you heard was 'I am a warrior.'"

"Arma-"

"Kaidou!" Kaidou grabbed J by the shoulder and slammed him against the wall. The machines rattled. Renais' IV hissed as it touched her white-hot skin. "My name is Ikumi Kaidou! Say it! Right now! If ever you've cared about me as anything other than your duty, say it this instant! Say 'Ikumi Kaidou!'"

"....."

Kaidou's eyes remained firm. His voice got quiet. "You barely know how to care about anything. Not yourself. Not Tomoro. Not me." His voice cracked a little.

"I love her."

"From what? From a day's worth of contact and the J-Phoenix? You don't know what that word means, either." Kaidou pushed J further into the wall. "You just know it's 'not hate' and 'not indifference' and 'not rivalry.' She's your new mission, isn't she? Admit it. You couldn't find anything else to live for but duty so you picked her as your duty."

"I-"

"Take out your sword, J."

"..."

"Your sword." Kaidou pushed back and snapped his hand sideways, a spiral of J-Jewel Energy roiling along his arm into a spike. "Draw it. I'm going to do you a favor."

"A favor, Arma?"

"Kaidou!" Kaidou grit his teeth. "That's right. I'm going to absolve you of your duty to me."

He was met with silence. Kaidou pointed the glowing red energy at J; the walls took on a ruby hue. "Ikumi Kaidou is challenging you, J. You don't back down from a challenge."

"I don't want to hurt her."

"I bet." Kaidou lunged forward, driving the blade into the wall next to J's helmet. "But you're thinking about how to kill her, aren't you?"

"...yes."

"Because that's the other side of your duty. The duty you and the rest of 3G accepted." Kaidou dragged the blade closer to J's neck. "This twisted duty you took upon yourself, because you don't know how to live. You always put everything on your own shoulders. Nobody else knows you're here, do they?"

"They don't." J tilted his head slightly into the blade. His armor didn't burn or break - it was, after all, the source of J's own power. "And the same can be said of you, cant it?"

"I waited until Doctor Yang sent everyone away so Renais could have her rest. I knew you'd come. I told you - I know you the way no one else does. I disabled the alarm and dismissed the guards, too." Kaidou snapped the blade out of the wall. "I know better than anyone that you'd just kill them. If we tried to fight you you'd probably be able to kill all of us right now. Maybe without Triple Zero, too. Guy might be your match, but you'd tear apart the whole building in the process."

"So why are you challenging me now? Let me take her. She doesn't belong here."

"She doesn't belong with you." Kaidou straightened. "She doesn't belong locked away in your tomb, watching you stare silently off into space, wondering when you're going to sacrifice yourself again. Because you always do, J, and if you sacrifice yourself for her, the guilt will crush her." He bit down on his lip. "It almost crushed me. And Mamoru. But we had each other. Mamoru had Hana."

"She said she had friends."

"It's different, J. You were the last generation. You gave up your lives for the new generation. That's the role of the last generation. We mourned, but we carried on. We weren't ever lonely. When you came back, we cheered and we trembled, because we might have to mourn you again, and this time it would be blood on our hands. Now take out your sword."

"How is this different?" J tilts his head to the side. "If I gave up my life-"

"Because you won't be doing it out of love!" Kaidou's blade snapped upwards, slashing this time directly for J's face. "You'll be doing it because it's all you know how to do! All you are! All you are is your duty, your sacrifice! Over, and over, and over, and over!"

J's own blade snapped forth from the J-Jewel to block Kaidou's. The beams collided with sparks. No finesse to Kaidou's blade, no fencing techniques, no Red Planet swiftness - just pure Earth strength hammering the blade against J's in the desperate hope that maybe, just maybe, the artificial soldier would listen, that one of these things would cut through the orange haze. Renais had managed to find someone who would save her. But as things were…

…as things were, J was too dangerous to leave alive, and the only people who might want to save him didn't exactly have the greatest persuasive skills in the world. And Guy convincing people to save J when the J-Ark was so dangerous…it wasn't likely.

So he smashed the blade over and over and over and over. Acknowledge me, the blade cried. Acknowledge Ikumi Kaidou. Acknowledge my words. Let me reach you, J, the only way I can.

J's blade danced. Kaidou was good - five years of practicing his telekinetics was enough to show that - but his blade couldn't get near J at all. J was faster. J was stronger. J was in an entirely different world. Kaidou, for all his strength, was still a person. J was a weapon.

He couldn't reach J.

J's fist snapped outwards into his stomach. He'd been so focused on his assault that he'd stopped paying attention to his surroundings, to anything but J's face and blade. Kaidou doubled over in pain. The force of that hit was enough to knock something loose in his ribs. He coughed blood onto the hospital floor, onto J's breastplate.

"Move, Arma. I am taking her home."

"No," Kaidou wiped his bloody lip, "You aren't. She's already home."

"I am taking her home."

Kaidou maneuvered between J and Renais, standing above the bed, blade still rolling off his hand. "Then you'll have to kill me. Are you able to do that?"

"Yes."

Kaidou's blood ran cold. Of course he could. He'd said as much back then, back against Pallas Abel, when the J-Phoenix had been born. 'Arma' was a warrior. He was prepared to die. And it was true, he was. But…

"You'll probably kill her in the process."

J paused.

"And you won't be able to die with her, or for her." Kaidou raised his arm pointlessly. "That's what you want, right? That's all you understand love to be. You met her for one day and you connected with her and now you want her to be with you when you actually get to rest."

J's blade wavered.

"That's why you want her to come back to Triple Zero. So you know you can die together. So that when you close out your duty you'll close it out together and you'll have finished every cause you've been fighting for."

"..."

"Kill me. Right now. Kill me, and kill her in the process, and then go back to your tomb and wait for the next cause to die for." Kaidou coughed some more blood. "Do it!"

J wavered again. His words were getting through. They had to be. J had never wavered once in all the time Kaidou had known him. Not once had J hesitated, or paused, or ever failed to carry out what he understood to be his duty. Seeing him do so was a spark of hope - even if it was hope caused by driving a nail into J's heart and ripping it open.

It was minutes before either moved. Finally, J closed his eyes behind his helmet. He turned off the blade and stowed the hilt back into his gauntlet. The Warrior of Red Planet turned to face the wall as the ES Window ripped itself open.

"Ikumi Kaidou."

Kaidou looked up.

"When next we meet, I will kill you. Until then, keep her safe." With that, J passed through the ES Window. The portal snapped shut behind him. Kaidou looked down at Renais' sleeping face, looked up at the wall he had carved into, and wrapped one arm around his stomach. He closed his eyes and headed out of the room without a word.

Perversely, he found himself smiling as he made his way down the corridor, even with blood running down his lips.

'Ikumi Kaidou.'