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The day that he was assigned Yamato as a co-pilot was the worst day of Taichi’s life.
There were plenty of Yamato’s type around the academy—devil-may-care punks with a chip on their shoulders, looking to become Rangers because they had no other choice or because fighting was just second nature to them. They weren’t there because they actually wanted to save people, like Taichi was. They were infuriating sometimes, but Yamato was the most infuriating of them all.
Yamato pissed Taichi off because he could have been so much more than the punk that he’d apparently written himself off as. He was smart and athletic, so much so that he didn’t have to try very hard to do well in the academy. So naturally he didn’t. Taichi had worked hard for this for nearly his entire life, and Yamato simply strolled in, kicked back, and acted like he owned the place. And he could have owned it, too, if he’d just put in a little damn effort every once in a while.
The day they were set to spar during training Taichi was eager for his chance to take Yamato down a peg. Yamato hadn’t been beaten yet, but Taichi had just as much natural skill as his sparring partner, and he actually practiced with it. Yamato was about to meet his match.
The opening bow was less than courteous; Yamato was just always that way and Taichi had never been particularly good at hiding his disdain for other people on the rare occasion he felt it. Taichi took first move as soon as they were in position, aiming a strike right for Yamato’s head, hoping to land a pride-damaging point right off the bat. It must have been too obvious a choice, because Yamato blocked him easily, countering almost immediately with a strike to Taichi’s knee, looking to take him down. For his part, Taichi blocked just as easily in return.
They struck up a rhythm, and no one had landed a hit quite yet, but Taichi knew it was only a matter of time. Eventually Yamato would make a mistake, leave an opening, which he had been trained so carefully to spot, and Taichi would have him. Yamato never took hits, so he was likely to be so put off that the first point would all but win it for Taichi. He just had to wait Yamato out, and make sure he didn’t slip up in the meantime.
“STOP!”
Taichi was so caught up in sparing with Yamato that the instructor’s voice jarred him like a buzz horn sounded directly in his ear. Yamato’s reaction was similar if the wide-eyed look on his face was any indication, although the surprise was quickly replaced with frustration.
“Why’d you stop us?” Yamato asked angrily, “We only just started.” There was a sheen of sweat across Yamato’s brow and his breath was coming out in heavy gasps, unusual considering they couldn’t have been sparring much more than a minute and were trained to go at this for hours. Now that he’d noticed it about Yamato, though, Taichi realized he was breathing heavily as well.
“Yeah, and nobody had won yet!” It was the wrong thing to say, since they’d had it drilled into their heads since the beginning that these matches weren’t about winning or losing, but about forging partnerships. But goddammit, just this once Taichi had really wanted to win.
The instructor hadn’t said anything else yet, but was giving them both an appraising look, as if trying to decide if they were being serious or not. The tunnel vision he’d developed while sparring wearing off, Taichi began to realize that the other cadets were staring at them as well, curiosity written all over their faces, and many of them had begun to whisper amongst themselves. Taichi returned his gaze to Yamato, who looked about as confused as he felt.
They’d been at it for over ten minutes, they were later told.
Neither had landed a single strike against the other.
Strictly speaking, neither of them was at the stage in their training to be actively testing for drift compatibility, but Taichi had never seen protocol thrown out the window faster than it was after their little sparring incident.
They’d been put through every test in the book (which ranged from brain scans, to guessing games, to Xbox, to even more sparring), far more than was actually necessary. Apparently their unprecedented level of compatibility made them a valuable source of data for the scientists and developments teams who worked on the PONS technology. Taichi didn’t mind, since he kept telling himself that certainly the next test would reveal it was all one big mistake and he and Yamato were clearly the least two compatible people on the planet. Yamato submitted to all of the tests with the same cold indifference Taichi expected he’d acted with his entire life.
He supposed today he would find out for sure. They’d finally run out of tests, it seemed, because today Taichi and Yamato were to take the only surefire test of their drift compatibility. They were actually going to drift.
Despite being less than thrilled about the entire situation, Taichi was keeping himself in high spirits by focusing on the silver lining. There was a brand new jaeger ready to be put into commission. She was beautiful: shiny, pristine white, and the largest model to date. Taichi spent days begging Sora for the inside scoop about the jaeger when he’d found out; it was supposedly the most combat advanced model to date, with a plasma canon as well as a massive sword for close range combat, and even a force field shield. And the rumor around the Shatterdome was, assuming today went well and Taichi and Yamato were able to successfully drift, they were first in line to pilot her.
Taichi would have drifted with a kaiju if it meant a chance at piloting that jaeger, so by comparison he was feeling unusually optimistic about his partnership with Yamato. You could hardly call them friends, but when dozens of tests had marked them as perfect to work together, how wrong could it possibly go?
The first drift was always attempted outside of a jaeger, so that potential co-pilots could get a feel for it without the added neural load of mind-melding with a giant robot. So they were stationed in a training room for the day, connected only by a set of PONS headsets rather than the full set of equipment required when properly drifting with a jaeger. Their “mission” was to be overseen by their Marshal as well as Koushiro, the chief LOCCENT officer who would be responsible for deploying them when they went on proper assignments against real kaiju. Jou, one of the new medics at the Shatterdome, was on standby just in case something went very wrong, which wasn’t terribly comforting. Even less comforting was how incredibly nervous he acted, as if he were quite sure something was going to go very wrong.
Based on evaluations of their fighting styles and strengths and weaknesses, it had been determined they were best suited to piloting with Yamato controlling the right hemisphere and Taichi the left, so they were positioned accordingly now, although there would be no jaeger to actually control. This meant that, if everything went according to plan, Taichi would be responsible for wielding the sword, which he felt entirely more gleeful about than he should probably admit to.
“Engaging pilot-to-pilot protocol,” Koushiro’s voice announced over an intercom from the control room right behind them. The PONS headset activated, and the first thing Taichi noticed was that it was very warm.
“Prepare for neural handshake.”
Fifteen seconds had never felt longer in Taichi’s entire life.
“Neural handshake initiated.”
There was a sudden, almost painful, rush of thoughts, both his and Yamato’s although it was impossible to distinguish between the two, and the effect was more like overwhelming white noise than anything coherent.
Then abruptly his head was clearer, and the memories were subsiding, but almost as if they were being pulled forcefully away. Yamato’s fighting the drift, he realized. He might have been angry, but just enough was still getting through for Taichi to know that Yamato was nervous. It was almost endearing, probably because it was the first display of actual human emotion he’d ever seen from Yamato.
Besides, he couldn’t exactly blame Yamato for being hesitant to let someone else inside his head. Taichi’d thought about it a lot himself, although he’d come to the conclusion that if he was really meant to drift with someone then there was no reason not to share his secrets with them—even if it was Yamato.
Taichi took a deep breath, steeled himself, and recalled one of the most embarrassing memories he could muster—in junior high he’d had a penalty shot in soccer but wound up and missed so completely that he’d flipped over and landed on his ass, costing his team the game in the process. He knew he wasn’t supposed to focus on one memory in particular, but if he could draw attention to it just long enough to get Yamato to loosen up, maybe that would be enough. Just think of the sword, he encouraged himself as he opened the memory up to Yamato, hoping to coax him into opening up in return. It’s okay, he tried to communicate, you can trust me.
The drift opened up again, this time much smoother than it had been before, the memories actually distinguishable from one another.
Taichi fell headlong into Yamato’s life. He was a small boy, cradling an even smaller toddler with a similar mop of blonde hair as he’d started to cry. Playing soccer in an Elementary school club. Smiling widely as he unwrapped a birthday present to reveal a shiny new harmonica. Parents bickering in the kitchen late at night, when they thought he was asleep and couldn’t hear.
“Neural handshake at 100%. Both pilots are in alignment.” Taichi was pretty sure he heard Koushiro’s voice announce, but the control room just a few feet behind him might as well have been light years away in that moment.
Now Taichi was back in his own memories, on the night of the kaiju attack on Hikarigaoka. It’s his first clear memory of the kaiju presence in their world, and the first time he witnessed a jaeger swoop in to save the day, the moment he realized that someday he wanted to be the one piloting the kaiju killing machine, saving the world.
But something wasn’t quite right with this memory he was beginning to realize. He was watching the attack as if from the apartment complex, not right at ground zero where he’d actually been at the time. And this room he was in was not familiar to him, with its blue walls, and plastic glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling. This was Yamato’s memory of that night, he realized. A shared memory. You were there, too, he thought, and Yamato didn’t respond, but Taichi knew that he had heard, that the sense of newfound closeness between them was mutual.
“Careful, guys. Don’t chase the rabbit.”
Koushiro’s voice was loud a clear this time, as if he’d suddenly come up right behind him and spoken without warning, and it snapped Taichi back to reality. The memories continued to play out before him.
Yamato’s family splitting up, him closing himself off to the rest of the world as a result. Yamato in a band, up on stage in front of a crowd, the only place he feels truly comfortable. Yamato joining the Jaeger Academy to become a Ranger, so that hopefully kids like his little brother wouldn’t have to.
Taichi felt a pang of regret for every bad thing he’d ever thought about Yamato. He’d thought he’d been just another jerk, never considered that he might have his reasons for—
The drift ended so suddenly that Taichi was nearly bowled over by the force of it. Abruptly aware of the world around him again he turned to Yamato, who had yanked his headset off and was glaring in Taichi’s direction.
“Fuck you,” was all Yamato said before dropping his headset and storming out of the room, not even stopping to ask for permission to be dismissed.
The biggest breakthrough of the Jaeger Program since its inception had just become its biggest disappointment.
The day that he was assigned Yamato as a co-pilot was definitely the worst day of Taichi’s life.
Perfect. Everything had been perfect. Sure, Yamato hadn’t been his first choice of partner, but they were obviously geared to work well together. There hadn’t been a single problem with the drift. Until Yamato had decided to make problems where there weren’t any.
“The most important aspect of the drift is trust,” was how it had been explained to Taichi when he’d been told there wouldn’t be a second attempt for him and Yamato to drift, “It doesn’t matter how compatible you are; if you feel as if you can’t trust one another for any reason, the drift simply isn’t going to work.”
And, of course, they couldn’t force Yamato to place trust in Taichi that he didn’t feel. Which Taichi would be more than willing to respect. If he knew why the hell Yamato wanted nothing to do with him all of a sudden.
He hoped to make amends with Yamato. At the very least, he was going to figure out what the hell his problem was.
Awesome Jaeger. Badass Sword. Everything you’ve ever wanted. Was Taichi’s mantra as he forced himself to finally dive in a confront Yamato.
He found Yamato in the mess hall sitting with, of all people, Jou, the squirrely medic. Taichi didn’t think he could imagine two people less likely to be spending time together, and yet there they were. Yamato didn’t seem to be contributing much to their conversation, but he was at least actually listening as Jou rambled on about who knows what.
“Hey, can we talk?” Taichi asked as he approached the table. Yamato just glanced up at Taichi non-commitally, before turning back to his food.
“What about?”
Jou must have sensed the tension, because he made a flimsy excuse and skittered out of the mess hall as fast as he could go.
You know exactly what about, you jerk! But no, Taichi wasn’t going to let this devolve into an argument. They were both going to talk this out like the civil adults they were. And then they were going to get in a Jaeger together, go out, and kick some serious kaiju tail.
“I just…I wanted to apologize for the other day.”
Yamato turned to face Taichi finally, but he was smirking rather like the cat that caught the canary. “Yeah? That’s great! So…what exactly are you apologizing for?”
“Argh, you are so frustrating, you know that?!” Ok, so Yamato had seen right through his fib. That’s alright, Taichi, deep breaths. Don’t get mad. Don’t get mad. “Fine, you’re right, I don’t know why you’re upset with me. But whatever I did, I really didn’t do it to make you mad on purpose. Can’t we just talk about it or something? I really want this to work.”
Yamato considered what Taichi had said for a moment, but then he laughed, not a particularly friendly sound, “You know what? I don’t need you acting like we’re friends when we obviously are not. I don’t need your lame-ass apologies. And I definitely don’t need your pity.”
“Pity? What—That’s seriously what you’re made about? Are you kidding me?”
In the drift, right before Yamato had gotten angry and stormed out, Taichi had been feeling sorry about misjudging Yamato. It was probably the first properly nice thing he’d ever thought about his partner, so of course it was also the thing that pissed him off.
But Taichi could see there was no point trying to discuss the issue any further with Yamato. They didn’t need to be drifting for him to know that Yamato’s mental walls were all the way up. With a resigned sigh he forced a “Whatever” through gritted teeth and walked away, leaving Yamato alone.
Taichi hadn’t even spent a week back in regular training before he decided he needed to confront Yamato again.
“Hey,” He said as he came to stand beside Yamato yet again. It was a lame start, but he was already bracing himself for Yamato to get defensive again, and was afraid to say anything too charged.
“Hi!” Yamato responded with an overly wide smile and falsely cheery tone, “Did you come to apologize again?”
Taichi winced. He had thought of trying to apologize another time. In fact, he had thought of several things he wanted to say, but on the way from his quarters to Yamato’s spot in the rec room they had degenerated to sorry I made you angry by feeling empathy for you like a normal human being, and I’ve been working almost my entire life for this moment so go ahead and ruin it for yourself, but if you could not be an asshole and drag me down with you that would be appreciated, so he wisely decided against voicing them now. Instead, he thought about the things Yamato had said to him during their last conversation, and the things Taichi had seen in Yamato’s mind when they were drifting, and he tried, “No, I didn’t. You don’t want me feeling sorry for you, I get it. Truthfully, I’m not interested in feeling sorry for you, either. But I wouldn’t mind maybe understanding you, if that’s alright?
Once again, Yamato spent a long minute considering what Taichi had said. Then he stood up and began to walk away.
“Hey, where are you going?!”
Yamato turned back to face him, and for the first time he was smiling earnestly, “Well, if we’re going to try drifting again we need to let Koushiro know, right?”
Taichi grinned and followed behind him.
As someone who says very little in regular conversation, it’s no surprise that Yamato’s headspace is so quiet.
Taichi’s on the other hand is loud and exuberant as he can so often be. This incongruence is their greatest struggle; Taichi’s thoughts are overwhelming in comparison to Yamato’s, and it takes them a few tries to find a balance between the two. Taichi learns to tone it down, and Yamato to “speak up,” and before long there is no longer any need for words or concrete thoughts, because they just know each other minds.
But while Yamato is of few words both in and out of the drift, he feels more fiercely than anyone Taichi has ever met. He’s so full of emotion he’s nearly bursting with it, holding it inside so that it doesn’t overwhelm him.
It’s hard for Taichi to believe that so many people see Yamato as cold, even harder to believe that he was once one of those people. He wants to shake them, to scream in their faces, to make them understand his partner. But Yamato would never forgive Taichi for exposing him like that.
Besides, maybe he was selfish, but he didn’t want to share this part of Yamato, which belonged to only him.
The day that he was assigned Yamato as a co-pilot was the best day of Taichi’s life.
They’d been assigned the new Jaeger just as predicted, Warrior Omega, and she was as perfect as Taichi had imagined, although he’d come to the conclusion he would have happily piloted a junky Mark-1 as long as he had Yamato beside him. They’d practiced drifting dozens of times, and had a few test runs in her, and then one summer afternoon they were deployed against their first ever kaiju.
It was a category III codename Diablo with long, spindly limbs, capable of switching between bipedal and quadrupedal movement, and unusually fast for its size. It was so fast that it was already pushing the miracle mile by the time LOCCENT was able to deploy Warrior Omega, forcing Taichi and Yamato to act with less caution than anyone would have liked for a first time unit. The kaiju was smart, and seemed more interested in getting past them and heading for the coast than engaging with them.
Even though they had practiced dropping dozens of times together, combat wasn’t quite like practice, and so they still fumbled a few times. The kaiju would close in, land a quick attack to throw them off and then be out of range before they could retaliate. The plasma cannon seemed like their best option, because it didn’t require close proximity to the kaiju to be used, but it took a few seconds to warm up, and that was all it needed; by the time they were able to aim and take fire it was easily jumping out of the way every time. Finally they did manage to land a shot, but it was glancing, catching one of Diablo’s back legs. It was enough to slow him down slightly, but nowhere near enough to stop him.
“That was our last shot,” Yamato lamented as he lowered his right arm, Taichi and Warrior Omega doing the same.
“We’re going to have to take it at close range,” Taichi said, more for LOCCENT’s benefit than Yamato’s, since he knew Yamato already knew what he was thinking, and how crazy his partner thought it was. But it might be their only chance and they both knew it. If they moved in on Diablo rather than waiting for it to come to them the surprise combined with its already injured leg might give them enough time to land a fatal blow. Of course, if they didn’t manage to kill it, the kaiju was almost certain to retaliate in kind.
Here goes nothing, then, Taichi thought, getting ready to load up their sword and make a run for it.
Wait.
Warrior Omega lurched, but didn’t move from the position they’d been holding. One shot, he knew Yamato was reminding him, although neither of them actually had to say it. Don’t take it hastily.
Watch.
They observed Diablo’s movements for a moment. It moved so quickly by spring boarding off of its hind legs, almost jumping rather than running. The blow they’d landed with the plasma cannon had been far more damaging than they’d realized. It hadn’t stopped the kaiju, but it had created an instant of hesitation when it moved as it shifted the weight to its rear legs. That was their opening. Diablo coiled its body, ready to make a move, likely aiming to blast right past them again and head for the coast, which they were dangerously close to now. It loaded all of its weight onto its back legs.
Now.
Warrior Omega burst forward before Diablo had a chance to. Diablo hadn’t even reacted to their move before they raised up their sword high above the jaeger’s head and brought it back down right across the back of the horrible creature’s neck.
Kaiju blue sprayed out of the severed artery falling down like rain and coating Warrior Omega’s previously spotless white hull. Diablo’s body crashed limply into the ocean, unmoving. They were less than a kilometer off the coast of Yokohama.
The drift was silent between them as they both stared at their kill, neither sure what to do, or say, or even think.
“You guys okay?” Koushiro asked over the communicator.
It seemed like a ridiculous question, all things considered, but while Taichi wasn’t quite sure “okay” was the right word, there certainly wasn’t anything wrong. He was alive, Yamato was alive, and the kaiju was dead. They had killed it. Oh my god I killed a kaiju.
“Guys?”
Koushiro was waiting for them, Taichi knew, but he honestly wasn’t sure how to respond, wasn’t even confident in his own ability to form words. Bizarrely, Yamato started to laugh, but somehow that felt like the appropriate reaction, so Taichi started laughing, too. He only set Yamato off further, and by the time the chopper came to pick them up and transport Warrior Omega back to the Shatterdome, they were both in hysterics.
After they arrived their suits were removed, and Jou fussed over the both of them for a few moments. He deemed them physically healthy and advised them to visit the on site counselor, which was a requirement for all Rangers after their first deployment. Then he left them alone. Taichi felt sort of numb throughout it all, and quiet hung in the air between him and Yamato after Jou left.
“Wow.” Yamato finally said after a few seconds of silence.
“Yeah,” Taichi agreed, “Not much else to say, is there?”
They smiled knowingly at each other, and then Yamato abruptly grabbed Taichi in a bone-crushing hug. The open show of affection was so unexpected from Yamato that Taichi wasn’t sure what to do at first. They might have still been ghost drifting, because the instant of hesitation was enough for Yamato to pull back as if he had been shocked. Taichi rolled his eyes and scooped Yamato up in a hug of his own.
The day that he was assigned Yamato as a co-pilot was definitely the best day of Taichi’s life.