Sometimes when Ryouga Kamishiro is sad he tries to convince himself that he is Ryouga Kamishiro

"Rio and I; we're barians."

The words ring heavy in the air, reverberating off everything and bouncing back to him, though he's more than used to it by now. He's still adjusting to his new way of talking – if he can even call it that. Can he even call it that?

[Talking is a human verb, an action he's taken for granted his whole 'life'.]

[For what's a life to a dead man?]

Ryouga shakes his head free of the thoughts, running his fingers down his new, deformed face, only to wince as the new claws that replaced his short, stubby human fingers tear their way through his new skin, sending wave after wave of pain screeching through his body.

He drops to the ground underneath him, shuffling awkwardly to move his stupid armour out of the way so he can sit comfortably, because god damn it, everything is a reminder of what he's come here to forget, what he's straight out denied his whole existence until a few weeks – days? How long has it even been? It feels like eternity after eternity, though he guesses in a way, it has – what he lied to himself about until now, right this very second as he sits there, staring at wilting flowers that he really should have attended to beforehand; every single thing is a reminder of what he can't seem to accept.

[Who wants to admit to themselves that they're the very thing they detest the most?]

"I'm still Ryouga though." He insists, and he's glad he can actually say the words, because he knows, he knows that if he can say the words out loud here, he can believe them when worst comes to worst and he has to pull out all of the belief he has in himself to choose what's right. "Yeah, none of this Nasch shi- oh, oops." He covers where his mouth would have been if it weren't for this stupid thing, but it doesn't matter. "Sorry. I know you guys don't like that."

He says that based off an assumption, he never got to find out how his parents felt about swearing before they were killed before his very eyes.

He leans forward, brushing away at the weeds that worm their way around the tombstone, catching it in their grip to erode at it, suffocate the stone until it breaks under the pressure of its grasp. Ryouga won't let it though, he won't let them break the only thing that makes him remember that he's still Ryouga Kamishiro no matter what, because everything else that he lived for now revolves around him being Barian – Rio, Merag, whatever her name is, she's a Barian too but she doesn't understand, and Yuma and Kaito...

He doesn't want to think of it.

It's not what he's here to think about anyway. He doesn't want to think about Yuma and the way he grinned no matter how far he was in over his head and how much it shattered him when he found out; he doesn't want to think about the way Yuma screamed "you're just like Vector!" at him, and the way every part of him just wanted to rip Yuma's throat out, scream don't you dare compare me to him as he shook the male by his neck until he had no reason to say such an accusation anymore.

[He realizes that this thought only makes him feel more like Vector, and it's the main reason he never went through with it.]

[After all, he's hurt Yuma enough.]

He doesn't want to think of Kotori sniffling face as she watched her friend walk through the portal alongside him, doesn't want to think about the way Kaito grabbed at his wrist and stared him deep in the eyes, demanded don't you dare leave me to pick up his pieces alone, but he just had to do what he had to, right?

He prattles on about something to the graves, falling to his back so he could talk and stare at the sky at the same time, do anything he can to try and not think of a home that's now a world away.

"Did you guys know?" he asks after a few minutes. It's his original question, the main reason he's here in the first place, secondary to being the only place he knows that no one would suspect him to return to, not even Rio. "I feel like you didn't, or you would have said something, right?" he pauses to turn his vision from the stars and back to the graves. "Maybe you did and I just forgot. We did have the symbol, after all. Besides, these memories are just all jumbled for me now, I can't tell what's truth and what's not."

He goes to shrug, only to be met with a resistance that's totally unfamiliar and he turns to the side, giving a growl as he pushes into the ground with enough force to remove his shoulder armour from its lodgement in the ground. He rubs at his shoulder absentmindedly as he brings himself into a seated position, adjusting the wilted flowers in front of him before giving in, picking them up and crushing them between his claws, his eyes narrowing as the flowers shattered to dust under his fingertips.

"I had other stuff to say, but I'm running out of time." He murmurs, wondering how on earth he hadn't been found already as is. "They'll probably come and cart me off to the Barian world any second. I just wanted to ask what I did, and to say that I don't want to go by Nasch, as much as everyone will make me." He stares out above him, and he wonders at some point whether his parents will be able to hear him at all. "The name Kamishiro is the only thing I have left of you guys, and there's no way I'd give that up, not for the world."

He chuckles at the irony of what he's saying as he relaxes for the first time since he'd been forced into his freaky Barian form.

"And I know you're watching and you still care. That's why I have a favour to ask. As much as you'd say that this isn't true, that you'd still love us no matter what, we're not your kids anymore. We're barians, so I guess that means we never were really." Ryouga shrugs. "Who knows? It's not like we can find some sort of evidence to prove either way."

He traces a finger along each of their names, refusing to look anywhere else as he does his best to carve them into his memory in the same way they've been carved into the stone. "But you'll always be my parents. And Rio would feel the same, I'm sure. But we're okay now; I'm protecting her as best I can, just like I promised. And hey, maybe this stupid new form will help me to achieve that." He pulls himself to his feet, brushing himself off as he rounds his words to a close. "Please watch over Yuma, help guide his dad home. We're already a broken family, at least give them a chance to be together again."

He closes his eyes and looks anywhere that isn't the graves as he does what he can to summon his courage. "I won't be back. I don't think it's possible anyway. That's all I needed to say." He pauses for a second before correcting himself. "Well, not quite. I love you and I miss you guys, every day. You'd know what to do here."

He sighs as he turns his back to the graves, wincing as he fights off the reminders, fights off the memories, his hand drawing blood as the claws that he claims to be his fingers dig even deeper into the palms of his hands.

"My name is Ryouga Kamishiro because of you, and that's the way it will stay until the day I die."