Title: Is Today's Dream
Fandom: Kamen Rider Kiva
Rating: G
Length: 608 words
Content notes: Spoiler warnings for late in the series.
Author notes: Years ago, I was in a RP, playing the character of Suzuki Mio. I've been trying to write a sort-of epilogue to that experience, and the prompt gave me a perfect chance to do just that.
Summary: Taiga wants to get things right, this time.


Taiga put his helmet in its spot as he got off his motorcycle. He was starting to wonder if that image of Mio had been a hallucination, something nice that his mind had thought up to keep him from drowning in guilt.

But he was going to check the grave just like he had every week, in hopes that Mio was there, in her black dress. Walking up the hill, he looked towards the gravesite.

It was empty. The marker still sat at the foot of the rock. There was nobody there.

He sighed - why did he keep hoping he'd find someone? He knelt at Mio's grave, quietly begging forgiveness from his Queen as he always did. He didn't see the letter that he'd placed there, at least not immediately.

"Taiga-san?"

He recognized the voice. "Mio?" he gasped, as a young woman came around the rock. She was dragging her suitcase behind her, as if she'd come back from a trip.

"Taiga-san." Her eyes were warm, and it was like she'd always loved him.

But he knew, regretfully, that she loved someone else. Even if she was his Queen, her heart would never belong to him.

He tried to pull himself together, and remember that he had some fixing to do. Masao had to be born, and Mio was right on time. "Let's get you home," he said. "I'll call a car." There was no way that he, Mio, and her suitcase would fit on his bike.

"I promised I'd be back, big brother," she said softly, and he smiled at her nickname for him. He thought of how they'd finally straightened things out in that strange place, and even if she hadn't been herself in the end, all that mattered was that it had brought her back to him. He'd be her brother-in-law shortly, have a second chance to get things right.

"Thank you, Mio," he said simply. "I'm sure Wataru will be glad to see you. And that… Ryoutarou."

He wasn't so sure about Mio dating a human, but he refused to interfere anymore. He wouldn't risk Mio's happiness, and Wataru's.

He pulled out his phone and made the call, and was reassured that a car would come.

"Let's sit down," he told her, and she was obedient, sitting down beside him.

"So, what do we do next?" Mio asked. She looked up at him. He remembered when he'd found out that she hadn't loved him, how betrayed he'd felt, but ultimately it turned out okay. He'd be an uncle sooner rather than later.

"We go home. We see if you're still Queen or not. And then I find Wataru." He wanted her to be free to be Mio instead of the Queen he'd idealized and tried to force her to be.

She nodded. "Is it all right?" she asked, and he looked over at her. So sweet, so insecure.

"It'll be fine, Mio. You and Wataru and… Ryoutarou, you'll be together." He still couldn't believe the fact that she was dating Ryoutarou, but she wasn't about to kill herself for breaking the law, and he wasn't going to enforce it. Not like before.

Not like when he was ready to kill her himself, for loving Wataru, who he'd thought to be human himself at the time.

She smiled, and it was the most beautiful thing he'd seen. In some ways, he still wanted Mio, and wanted her badly. But her heart was Wataru's, he had to keep remembering that. He had the chance to do things over, in a way, and he would take it.

And maybe, maybe, things would be whole again.