The child-Zoalord had been very eager to
learn about the inner workings of Chronos, and Edward had found
him to be at least reasonably intelligent considering his age.
Still, the boy was rather more excitable than Edward would have
preferred. Currently, the child-Zoalord was attached to his left
arm in the manner of a limpet, which was slightly annoying.
However, the fact that they had almost reached the room that
Lord Imakarum had claimed for himself did give Edward some hope
that he could be free of his present encumbrance.
-Lord Edward? So you were the one who
took Kenji out of our room. What were you doing with him?-
-I was merely taking him on a tour of
this facility. The boy seemed rather interested in the inner
workings of the Processing Division. I suspect he will be useful
for designing Zoanoid models, if nothing else.-
Lord Imakarum nodded, striding forward
to meet Edward and his companion.
"Well, did you like spending time with
Lord Edward, Kenji?"
"Yeah I did, Dad. He’s nice; I like
him," the child-Zoalord said happily, finally releasing Edward’s
arm.
Scampering over to Lord Imakarum, which
Edward personally thought was rather undignified, Ingriam
embraced his father tightly. Edward watched as Lord Imakarum
stroked the child-Zoalord’s back and petted his hair, then
turned away, not interested at all in the interaction between
the child-Zoalord and his father. Without looking back, Edward
left.
XxXxX
Imakarum stroked Kenji’s hair a last
time, then pulled back to softly kiss his son’s forehead. Lord
Alkanphel had been informed of the results of Chronos’ first
substantive attack on the Anti Chronos Task Force and the Fourth
Guyver and had been rather amused that there was a Guyver who
could not easily stand against a Hyper Zoanoid. Surprising, yet
pleasing at the same time.
Imakarum, as he walked Kenji back to
their room, shared this amused pleasure: it would make disposing
of this new Guyver that much easier. Imakarum, however, had not
been expecting anything better of the Fourth Guyver after
learning that he had merely fought Lost Numbers. The useless
dregs of Chronos could not ever be expected to give any Guyver a
real fight.
"Dad, I don’t want to go back to our
room. I’m bored—can we go play?"
"Of course we can, Kenji. What do you
want to do?" Imakarum asked, stopping and turning to look at
Kenji.
"Could we maybe go outside and play
hide-and-seek? We haven’t done that in a while," Kenji said,
sounding hopeful as he hugged Imakarum’s arm.
Imakarum considered his son’s request:
there was nothing inherently dangerous about allowing Kenji to
leave Cloud Tower. Certainly the Fourth Guyver would not be of
any consequence so far from his territory. Finally deciding that
there was no real reason for him to fear for Kenji’s safety,
Imakarum made his choice.
"All right, Kenji-chan—I don’t see why
not. Let’s go."
Kenji laughed happily, tugging on
Imakarum’s arm as the two of them began to make their way out of
Cloud Tower. "Can we go to the woods? It’s always more fun to
play in the woods."
Kenji was practically skipping by
now, almost casually dragging Imakarum along, and his father let
him. Kenji hadn’t been this happy… this
free
since he was four years old. It was as if his son had somehow
managed to forget all of the bad things that had happened to him
over the course of his life, and Imakarum found himself
marveling at Kenji’s resilience once again. Nothing ever seemed
to keep his son down for very long.
"Slow down, Kenji. There’s an easier way
to get where we want to go." Imakarum wrapped his arms around
Kenji’s waist and teleported them both to a forest.
Since he’d had no real, concrete
destination in mind when he’d teleported, Imakarum had ended up
at the very place where Kenji’s transformation into the youngest
of Chronos’ Zoalords had been instigated, the place where that
traitor Reholt Gyou had found him all those months ago. With a
quick glance at the remains of the tent where Kenji had stayed
for so long, Imakarum swept his son up into his arms and left
that region of the forest.
Kenji yelped as Imakarum picked him up,
and then once again as Imakarum sped off into the forest.
Imakarum had his shield up, since at the speed he was running
the wind shear might have injured his son. Imakarum wanted to
avoid that, and he also hoped to avoid reminding Kenji of those
sad times when he had left him alone in that tent. It was the
one thing that Imakarum no longer hated the former Zoalord Gyou
for.
The
only
thing.
Kenji would probably have died if not
for the interference of the former Zoalord—even Imakarum’s
hatred of the one that he had replaced could not make him deny
that truth—but Kenji’s lonely isolation in that tent had ended a
long time ago. The last thing that Imakarum wanted to do was
remind him of it.