Chapter 6: Something Resembling Normalcy

Disclaimer: I do not own Cardfight! Vanguard.

VANGUARD

I didn't abandon this! I will never abandon this! I love it too much! It's just that I'm in university and coursework happened, you know? With summer coming up, the next chapter shouldn't take quite so long to complete. I truly apologise for the wait.

VANGUARD

(Aichi's P.O.V.)

It had been my own fault that I was in the position I was in, but despite their incessant teasing about how I'd been handcuffed to the bed for the duration of my stay in the infirmary, it was quite obvious that Ren-san, Leon-kun, Chris-kun, and even Elaine-san, who had confined me to the infirmary in such a manner in the first place, didn't blame me.

Kai-kun's sudden arrival had shocked us all, and while Chris-kun had chosen to withhold his judgement for the time being, Ren-san and Leon-kun were quite bothered by it. A quiet fury now lay beneath their usual demeanours, and Kai-kun had begun to pick up on it. That much was evident, judging by the way that he became awkwardly quiet around them in the days since his arrival in a way that was unusual, even for Kai-kun.

These thoughts played over and over in my head as I tried to figure out the reasoning behind Takuto-kun's decision, ignoring the click of the handcuff on my right wrist being unlocked. My arm suddenly released, I absentmindedly drew my hand up in front of me to rub at my wrist, hoping to make the last vestiges of my discomfort disappear.

I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder, and I was slowly drawn from my thoughts, looking up into Elaine-san's green eyes, her golden bracelets jangling as she reached up to brush her long green hair out of her face, instead brushing it behind her long pointed ears where it would be out of the way, revealing her circlet of gold and the red gem that seemed to have been set into her forehead. The warm breeze that blew through the open window next to me ruffled her gravity-defying hair and nearly-translucent white clothes.

"Are you OK, my Vanguard?" she asked tentatively, a slight frown making its way onto her face. "You seem troubled."

I did my best to smile, despite the circumstances. "Don't worry about me, Elaine-san. I'm just thinking about Takuto-kun, that's all," I assured her, my mind already going back to the issue at hand.

Her frown deepened. "Well... If you're sure..." She was silent for a second or two as she appeared to ponder her next words. "Perhaps Vanguard Chris can help you with whatever you're thinking about. He's more intelligent than most of us," she admitted with a slight blush of embarrassment.

"I'll be discussing it with the other Vanguards," I informed her bluntly, slipping out of bed. "Of course, His Majesty will have to be made aware of the developments, too..." I muttered absentmindedly as the thought only just then occurred to me. I slipped out of the gown that I'd been given when I was placed in the infirmary, already vaguely aware that I'd evidently been discharged.

Elaine-san hummed thoughtfully. "I'll leave you to it, then, my Vanguard. I'm sure that His Majesty will be able to make sense of it," she finally said with a beaming smile, suddenly looking much more confident at the mere mention of the King—a common trait among the Royal Paladins who tended to put their utmost faith in King Alfred, as though the man could do no wrong, and I have to admit, at the time, I desperately wanted to believe the same.

Elaine-san turned her back to me and went about her work, checking the abysmally low stocks of medication within the tiny infirmary, allowing me to change in silence, wincing occasionally as the wound in my side stretched and rubbed against the bandages, yet not enough to stop me from moving somewhat normally.

As I pulled on my coat, still torn and bloody from the battle, I briefly thought about who I could take it to to get it mended, or if it was, indeed, worthwhile, considering the fact that the repairs to our armour would likely be finished soon. To soon be back in that familiar armour, holding my familiar weapon, was a comforting thought, and I briefly wondered how Hephaestus had even begun to fix our weapons and the mangled mess that had at one point been Leon-kun's armour.

Deciding that I would check in on Hephaestus before I made any sort of decision with regards to my tattered clothing, I turned to Elaine-san, offering her what I hoped was a heartfelt, "I'm sorry for taking up your time."

Not even turning to face me, Elaine-san kept her eyes on the small brown pill bottle that she held in one hand, seemingly checking the name on the label against something that was written on the document that was attached to the clipboard that she held in her other hand. Briefly raising her hand in recognition, the tablets in the bottle rattling as she did so, she responded with a quick, "That's what I do," before focusing on her task once again.

I opened the infirmary's squeaking door and headed into the hallway, shutting the door behind me. The click of the door echoed down the empty hallway, reminding me of where I was. No longer in the quiet, private infirmary, I raised my head high and began to walk with an air of authority, mentally creating a list of tasks that I needed to complete that day in no particular order. Turning a few corners as I remained deep in thought, I considered which task to tackle first, but no matter how many options I considered, I always came back to the first task that I thought of.

Make sure that the others are doing their jobs correctly.

—

Arguably, Ren-san hadn't done a bad job, but that was only because he hadn't done his job at all. I wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. One the one hand, he hadn't destroyed anything or angered anybody important while I was gone, but on the other hand, he hadn't worked to improve our situation at all, either, and that might be considered harmful in and of itself.

Leon-kun looked frazzled and generally fed up with Ren-san, and I had no doubt that he'd been running after the redhead nonstop. Chris-kun, thankfully, was his usual happy self, curled up in a ball in his chair in the meeting room with the documents that needed to be read and sign on his knees, smiling down at them as his dark purple eyes scanned the pages, his mind absorbing the information like a sponge.

Despite the large wooden doors creaking as I entered the room, nobody looked up. Ren-san was slouched over the large wooden table, his chest rising and falling softly, seemingly asleep. Leon-kun, as frazzled as he was, was repeatedly running his hand through his unusually unkempt blond hair, muttering to himself. As I approached, I noticed his pale skin and the dark circles under his eyes. It was as though he hadn't slept.

I reached for my chair, which sat next to Leon-kun's, and pulled it back from the table, wincing as its wooden legs scraped across the tiled floor with an uncomfortably loud sound. It was only then that Leon-kun dared to look away from his paperwork, which I quickly noticed included Ren-san's pile, as well as some of my own.

"Oh..." Leon-kun muttered tiredly as I walked around my chair and approached him. "You're out of the infirmary..."

I rifled through the papers on his desk, retrieving my own along with Ren-san's and a large portion of Leon-kun's assigned tasks. He didn't seem to notice. I slid the papers across the surface of the table, which had been polished like a mirror, placing them in front of my own seat before leaning down to look Leon-kun in the eye. I frowned as I noticed the frequency with which his eyelids threatened to snap shut and felt a pang of guilt that I'd let him get this exhausted due to my own recklessness in battle.

I removed my tattered coat and lifted the red cushion from my chair, placing the cushion on the table and draping the coat over Leon-kun. "You should sleep for a little while. Get to bed when you're feeling better," I told him bluntly, hoping that my tone would leave no room for argument. Thankfully, Leon-kun was too tired to care, and he slowly lay down on the cushion, drawing my coat up around himself like a blanket.

I let out a sigh of relief before looking through the papers that lay haphazardly on my area of the table. Retrieving Ren-san's papers, I marched around the table with as much authority as I could muster, wincing as my erect back tugged on my healing wound, and delivered a swift kick to Ren-san's leg. The redhead jumped with a yelp, and it didn't take long for me to see his flushed face and stuffy red nose. Evidently, he'd come down with something, but that didn't stop me from throwing the documents down on the desk in front of him.

"Leon-kun is exhausted," I hissed at him, careful not to waken my sleeping comrade, before ordering, "Do your work."

Ren-san groaned with annoyance. "Sorry... I'm sick..." he muttered quietly, sniffling slightly.

"That doesn't mean that you can just leave your work to everyone else. How many times have the rest of us gotten sick and worked through it, anyway? Without us doing this, at the very least, this whole place stops functioning. We don't have time for this," I snapped angrily, turning on my heels.

I ignored Ren-san's whining and took my seat around the other side of the desk, keeping an eye on Ren-san as he picked up a pen and began to tap it against the paper as he slowly scanned its contents with a tired frown. Finally convinced that he was working, I looked down at my own documents for the first time and flicked through them, getting a general idea of the army's problems.

There was a request from the Healers to allow them to look for medicinal herbs to replenish some of the medicine supply, a request from the cooks to search for more food, a request from the blacksmiths to look for material for armour and weapons... It seemed to go on and on. With a sigh, I turned back to the first page and began to read it carefully, barely able to stop my mind from drifting to the topic of our new arrival.

(Kai's P.O.V.)

I felt as though I'd done nothing since coming to Cray. Nothing positive, anyway. Ever since I'd visited Aichi in the infirmary and Aichi's violent reaction to my sudden appearance, I had thought it best not to return to see him. I would see him when he wanted me, surely. Ren had been to visit a few times, but he had been visiting less and less. In fact, it had been Nehalem who had visited the most, sans a dragon, of course.

Nehalem had been kind, and he seemed to be excited to see me. As I was unsure about the layout of the building, and was unwilling to leave my room alone as a result, he had walked around with me, introducing me to several different units and showing me a variety of important places. For example, he'd taken me to the training hall, where I had seen Blaster Blade and Blaster Dark in the midst of their intense training.

One of the more interesting excursions occurred when he took me to the stables where a wide variety of mounts were housed, including several of his own dragon partners. Surprisingly, he seemed to be able to tell them apart despite the fact that they all looked the same. Despite the fact that they were incapable of speech, he conversed with them easily, recognising their noises and movements easily, and translating them into Japanese for me.

After noticing a distinct lack of Kagerō units, Nehalem had also told me a bit about the war against Void. Supposedly, while many had stood up against Void and the Reverse phenomenon, a handful clans had also chosen to avoid the war altogether. They'd chosen to protect themselves by distancing themselves. These clans, he explained, were Neo Nectar, who wished to maintain peace among their own clan, Granblue, who believed themselves to be safer beneath the waves, and Kagerō. Dragonic Overlord had simply chosen to stay out of it, and the rest of the clan was given an ultimatum—stay or go.

"Most of us stayed," Nehalem had explained before smiling wistfully. "We'd be welcomed back at any time, though. Dragonic Overlord is like that. He's gruff and stubborn, but he's kind, too. He'd never stop his people from returning."

I had, quite honestly, been surprised. I had imagined Dragonic Overlord to be a bit more...stuck in his ways, I suppose, a little bit like myself. What I was even more surprised about, however, was that Nehalem knew of me to begin with. I had him in my deck at one point, sure, but I didn't have PSY Qualia. That didn't matter, though, Nehalem assured me. All units recalled the people who forged contracts with them through cardfights, and I was no exception.

"You're a powerful cardfighter," he had told me with an air of pride, "and that makes you one of Dragonic Overlord's favourites."

Fighting back a blush, I had barely managed to force out an embarrassed, "Shut up," and Nehalem had laughed. I felt like our friendship was going somewhere, and in that unfamiliar world where the only people I knew weren't acting like themselves, that was a wonderful thing.

It was for that reason that, the next time we met, I asked him about what Takuto had said.

"I was told to come here to help everybody, but I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing," I admitted as Nehalem, who sat next to me on my bed, nodded in understanding, his pointed dark blue armour squeaking as he did so. He reached up to fiddle with his tattered red scarf in thought before removing his dragon-like helmet and placing it on his knees, revealing short light brown hair. Finally, piercing green eyes fixed on me as he began to fiddle with the large iron dragon figure on top of his helmet.

"Honestly, Kai, I don't know. Takuto is very important, though. He's Cray's observer, and even though he's meant to be neutral, he's helped us more times than we can count. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who wouldn't trust him with their life. If Takuto sent you here, it was for a reason, and an important one, at that," Nehalem explained, although he didn't sound too sure of himself. "That's my opinion on it all, anyway."

I let out a sigh and flopped back onto the bed. "I just wish he'd had the time to tell me what he wanted," I responded, unable to hide my exasperation.

"Well, he's very far away," Nehalem hurriedly reasoned. "To even get through to you on Earth in the first place just shows how powerful he is. We should be thankful that he managed to contact you at all."

"You're right…" I mumbled tiredly, a million thoughts running through my head. "I wish there was some sort of clue, though…"

"Maybe the clue lies in who you are," Nehalem suggested, rubbing his chin in thought. "I mean, if he wants you to do something, it has to be something that only you can do. Otherwise, he'd just have had the Vanguards or one of us units do it."

"That's the problem, Nehalem," I responded, exasperation bleeding into my voice. "I don't know what I can do. I can't fight, I'm no leader, and I don't have a special bond with you all like Aichi and Ren do. I'm not even particularly good at talking to people." I stopped talking with a sigh. "I play card games, Nehalem. That's it."

"Even that is useful," Nehalem told me quietly, leaning back to look at me over his shoulder.

"Eh?" I found myself responding stupidly, a blank expression on my face. "How would that help here?"

"Regardless of whether you have PSY Qualia or not, units still know you, Kai. They trust you. You've led them to victory so many times before against forces that we'd never have been able to oppose on our own. You're talented. You know us well. You know we Kagerō units better than any of the Vanguards, I'd bet," Nehalem responded with a confident grin.

"Yeah. Kagerō units. The ones that aren't even here," I muttered dejectedly. "What use am I when the only connections I have here are nowhere to be seen?"

"Maybe…Dragonic Overlord will come around…in time…" Nehalem mumbled with an uneasy smile.

"You don't sound so sure of that," I stated matter-of-factly.

"Well…nobody can be sure with Dragonic Overlord, to be honest. He's either set in his ways, or he's changing his mind too darn much," Nehalem grumbled, sounding dissatisfied. "It's hard to predict what he'll do."

"That sounds helpful…" I said with a groan, feeling a slight headache coming on from all of the thinking and moping that I'd been doing. Nehalem sat in silence for a few seconds, averting his gaze from me, before finally opening his mouth to speak again.

"But…it's a chance…" Nehalem said, sounding somewhat hopeful. "I mean, he can't hold Kagerō back from the fight forever. Not when it starts to encroach on our territory. His hand will be forced sooner or later, and when he makes that decision, we just have to hope that he comes to our side instead of fighting alone out of pride."

"That…doesn't really say anything about what I can do, though…" I responded quietly, unable to stop myself from heaving a sigh.

"Well…" Nehalem began, tapping a finger against his helmet. "I suppose that means that we'll just have to wait and see, then…and by that, I mean that we find something to do in the meantime."

"The meantime?" I asked apprehensively. "What can I do in the meantime?"

Nehalem was silent again, all but for the tapping of his finger against his helmet as he appeared to enter something of a trance, deaf to everything but his own thoughts. I watched as a frown made its way onto his face, deepening with each passing moment as he thought hard about all the options that were available to them.

"Well…why not ask the Lead Vanguard to train you in battle as a start? You're close. Ye could use a break from the paperwork," Nehalem suggested, a satisfied grin replacing his frown.

I blanched. "Me? Fight?! Ask Aichi to help?! Heck, no. You heard about his reaction when he saw me. He wants me nowhere near a battlefield. Heck, he even wants me to leave Cray entirely!" I protested, watching as Nehalem's grin grew wider.

"So?" Nehalem responded slowly. "Fix it, then. Your friendship, I mean. Overlord knows the Lead Vanguard needs a friendly face around here after everything that's happened."

"Can't you just teach me?!" I blurted out without truly realising that I'd just declared myself willing to take part in this nonsense.

"Nope. I'm haven't been allowed near the training hall since the fire," Nehalem stated matter-of-factly, and suddenly, I found myself thinking that I probably didn't want to know about this fire. "Train with the others, then. Show him that you've got initiative, and maybe even skill. You're friends with Vanguard Ren, right?"

"No offense, but I don't trust Ren with sharp, pointy objects. He's ruined too many of my chef's knives, and accidentally stabbed himself more than I'd consider normal," I admitted, somewhat hoping that this revelation wouldn't ruin Nehalem's perceptions of his Vanguard. The way that his eyebrows shot into his hairline in shock told me that he didn't know any of this, and that I should have perhaps kept my mouth shut regarding the matter. I forged on, hoping to wipe that thought from his memory. "Anyway, he doesn't want me here, either. I pretty sure of that. I'm not good at picking up on the emotions of other people, but he's been getting angry around me ever since I came here."

"Oh, Kai, he's not angry at you," Nehalem responded with a light-hearted chuckle. This time, it was my turn to raise my eyebrows.

"How do you know? It seems pretty clear to me," I asked, my expression of shock shifting to a frown of confusion.

"He's not angry at you, Kai. He's happy to see a familiar face who hasn't been changed by all of this. No, he's mad at Takuto," Nehalem told me as though he was stating the obvious.

"Takuto?" I responded incredulously. "I thought he was really important. Can Ren risk putting him in his bad books?"

"Probably not, but you can't help how you feel. Don't get me wrong, Kai. He's happy to see you. I can tell. It's just that other units have heard him giving off about Takuto bringing you here. He's worried about you being in a dangerous place like this. I dare say that the Lead Vanguard is in the same boat. The fact that he wants you to leave just shows that he doesn't want you to get hurt," Nehalem stated, his voice brimming with confidence.

"I wish I could be that confident…" I muttered with a sigh. "I barely even know what I'm feeling, never mind them…"

"Listen, Kai," Nehalem said seriously. "You really should ask Vanguard Ren about this. He'd probably be happy to see you taking initiative, and so would the Lead Vanguard. On top of that, if you got some basic training in a field that suits you best, they wouldn't have to worry about you so much."

I frowned at him, my mind going blank as I searched for a reason to get out of this. Eventually, I simply asked, "Do you really think so?" hoping desperately that Nehalem might decide that he was wrong about this idea.

"I really do," Nehalem answered unhelpfully.

"I'm not getting out of this, am I?" I found myself asking, already sounding defeated.

"Well, you can, but I'll never stop badgering you about it," Nehalem responded with a mischievous smirk. "Come on! We'll ask him together!"

I sighed, both annoyed and nervous. "Right…" I murmured, hauling myself upright. "Let's get this over with…"