[Waking up in the desert is not a pleasant experience. There's sand everywhere and Kamina is fairly sure he's swallowed more of it than any one human should ever consume. Hopefully that's not actually dangerous; the last thing he wants is to end up dead after breaking out of the afterlife.
That had taken some doing, of course. He had managed to round up a group of people who weren't interested in staying dead and together they had... well, they had done something that involved a lot of shouting and heroic speeches and they had busted their way out through the ceiling. Who knew the afterlife had a ceiling anyway? It had looked like the sky, but somehow Kamina knew that his destiny was to go upward, regardless of what lay above him. He had been right, but that didn't change how odd the entire thing was.
Oh well, he's got some people to see and places to go now that he's alive again. Kamina pulls himself upright, dusting off his pants and frowning when that just gets more sand on them. He shrugs it off and glances around, noticing the sword stuck in the ground with his cape tied to it. Is this where he was buried? Huh. He pulls the cape off and swings it around his shoulders, tying it in place before grabbing the sword and securing that at his back.
Then he does what absolutely any sane man does, he tilts his head upward and he shouts.]
Team Gurren, or what's left of it, is camped a couple of miles from Kamina's burial site, apt as always to gravitate towards that hill whenever they're passing by. Near, but not quite within the distance of a rock's throw (unless you're throwing a rock with a Gunman).
Yoko is actually on her way back from a solo visit to the site, undertaken because maybe she's a little more sentimental about the blue-haired hero than she'd like to admit. And, well, there are some things about Kamina that she can't share even with Simon. Ten times over. She feels like she's visited that idiot's grave ten times too many, trying and failing to find the right words--to find words that Kamina would have unearthed without even trying.
The logical thing to think when she hears that unmistakable roar is that her brain, in the act of missing him, is making shit up to screw with her. Well, consider Yoko screwed with, because it takes only a split second of deliberation before she's turned on her heel and is running at top-speed back to that hill.
"KAMINA?!"
He'll do what he wants, death isn't going to stop him!!
[Kamina waits until the sound of his voice has vanished before moving. He could sit here and wait for them to show up, but if they were too far away and didn't hear him...
He glances around, trying to locate anything that might give him a direction where to go-- oh. Those look like gunmen over there, don't they? He figures that's as good of a direction as any to head toward, and even if it's not Simon and the others, he can at least steal a gunmen and try to figure out where they are from there. That should be easy enough--
But his thoughts are interrupted by a shout and he finally notices Yoko running towards him. Kamina grins, sauntering over to her almost as though he hasn't got a care in the world. His steps are a little faster than they need to be though; it's good to be back.]
Yoko! [He drags out the final o in her name a little bit, almost teasingly.] How have you been holding up, huh?
Unbelievable. Kamina. Right here in front of her, like nothing's happened, like he's been perfectly fine this whole time.
Is this real? Did she fall asleep cleaning her rifle or something? Is she majorly dehydrated and hallucinating?
Yoko reaches out a hand to touch him and freezes when her fingers touch solid, warm skin. Real. He's real. The only person she's ever had vaguely romantic feelings for, the insuppressible hero, the founder of Team Gurren, the constant source of said team's hope for the future. Kamina the irreplaceable, the inimitable, the impossible and the invincible. Right in front of her. She could fling herself into his arms, cry hideous wracking sobs into his chest, lift up on her tiptoes and collect that ten times over he'd once promised her, if she wanted to.
Instead Yoko swings to clock him upside the head, embarrassingly teary-eyed. "Idiot!" she cries. "How am I holding up? You left us, you good-for-nothing--you died!"
Unbe-friggin-lievable. And yet--not. Of course Kamina would be the one to refuse to kick back and relax in the world-beyond. Of course he'd be the one to break every possible rule, simply because he decided the rules were breakable.
Yoko glares up at him, totally lacking remorse. "Yes I did. I had to make sure you wouldn't get any of those stupid self-sacrificing last-ditch-charge urges again." Of course she knows that without Kamina's sacrifice, they wouldn't have Dai-Gurren--they'd likely not even have their lives--but still. She gives her eyes an industrious rub to chase away those pesky tears before she looks up at him again, at that ridiculous pained expression of his. Yes--it really is him--the same Kamina she knows and loves.
[Kamina grins, clapping a hand to Yoko's shoulder. It isn't the same sort of smack he'd give Simon, it's gentler.]
I did what I had to do to help secure our victory. I'm not gonna lie, it hurt and the whole thing was pretty awful, but it worked, didn't it? Besides, if you seriously think you guys are getting rid of me that easily, you've got another thing coming!
Yoko huffs out her last bit of righteous fury and doesn't move the hand from her shoulder. Her arms, crossed at her front, shift hesitantly before she decides that life is too short--far too short--to be shy or avoidant, and in that moment she takes a small step forward to hug him. (Sans sobbing, thankfully.) "Good. Don't think we'd let you leave again, either."
[He doesn't hesitate either, moving that hand on her shoulder to wrap around her back in a hug. He's grinning still, but the expression is a bit softer.]
Yeah. I know.
[He's sure Simon is torn up about this too, but for the moment he just wants to comfort Yoko. Simon will be okay; he's much stronger than he thinks he is, after all.]
"I know." The whole warm-strong-armed-embrace thing is a cliché far abused, but there's a reason for that, isn't there? Even though she's not anyone who needs protecting, it's nice to have him here.
If his thoughts are on Simon, hers aren't far behind. Still, selfishly--as she has always been, a little, when it comes to Kamina--she hangs on for an extra few moments before releasing the world's favorite blue-haired wonder.
Yoko's smile fades just a little bit. "Everyone took it hard," she shrugs. "But for the most part, we remembered that you were fighting for something--we were fighting for something--and that we couldn't give up until we won. Otherwise, what would be the point, of... of your death--" she almost feels like saying those words aloud are a jinx--"or of others'? So mostly... we've pulled through. The one person really in trouble was Simon."
At this she pauses to look up at him. "You're--you were his whole world--you know that? He needed that clock in the face to get moving, but you weren't there to give it to him. He just sat in his room for days carving creepy little statues of you with his drill. Wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep. Once even when we were fighting Gunmen, Lagann went totally haywire and dove off a cliff. But then he found Nia."
You have to move forward. Everyone had known that this would be Kamina's philosophy on the matter. There was no question. He'd want them to go on. Hearing him say so, in the flesh, plain and clear, makes all the hours of pain and doubt seem just a little more justified.
"Nia is Lordgenome's daughter. The Beastman princess, so to speak." She debates pausing for effect here, but decides to continue before Kamina charges straight into camp to murder this girl. "But she was cast out, apparently, and now she's part of Team Gurren... she has a different way of seeing the world. And I think she helped Simon see it differently, too." Now she does pause, contemplating those two for a moment. "That's part of it, at least, what pulled him out of that slump. I think another part is that he's got someone to protect now. And someone who'll believe in him no matter what--with total blind faith."
[Well it's a good thing she continued there because yes, Kamina would have charged back to camp to interrogate her at the very least.
Hearing that Simon has found someone to pull him out of his depression makes Kamina smile though.]
That's good to hear! It sounds sort of like the relationship we have, actually. Simon always trusts and believes in me, no matter what and in turn, he's someone I can look after and protect and support - it's great that he's found someone like that while I was... away.
"Sure you're not gonna get jealous that he's paying attention to somebody else?" Yoko teases, despite being sure that Simon will be ecstatic to see Kamina and just as awestruck by him as he always has been. "It's not quite a parallel... I'm pretty sure you never had a crush on Simon."
"When Lagann dove off that cliff, Simon went with it... he found her in a strange box in the valley that his little spiral key could open. And, well... she was pretty helpless, we couldn't just leave her. We didn't know she was Lordgenome's daughter until she stood up to one of his Generals."
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Post-death Kamina & Yoko: Guess Who's Back
That had taken some doing, of course. He had managed to round up a group of people who weren't interested in staying dead and together they had... well, they had done something that involved a lot of shouting and heroic speeches and they had busted their way out through the ceiling. Who knew the afterlife had a ceiling anyway? It had looked like the sky, but somehow Kamina knew that his destiny was to go upward, regardless of what lay above him. He had been right, but that didn't change how odd the entire thing was.
Oh well, he's got some people to see and places to go now that he's alive again. Kamina pulls himself upright, dusting off his pants and frowning when that just gets more sand on them. He shrugs it off and glances around, noticing the sword stuck in the ground with his cape tied to it. Is this where he was buried? Huh. He pulls the cape off and swings it around his shoulders, tying it in place before grabbing the sword and securing that at his back.
Then he does what absolutely any sane man does, he tilts his head upward and he shouts.]
SIMON!! YOKO!! WHERE ARE YOU GUYS?
oh my god Kamina, you can't just UNDO DEATH . <3
Yoko is actually on her way back from a solo visit to the site, undertaken because maybe she's a little more sentimental about the blue-haired hero than she'd like to admit. And, well, there are some things about Kamina that she can't share even with Simon. Ten times over. She feels like she's visited that idiot's grave ten times too many, trying and failing to find the right words--to find words that Kamina would have unearthed without even trying.
The logical thing to think when she hears that unmistakable roar is that her brain, in the act of missing him, is making shit up to screw with her. Well, consider Yoko screwed with, because it takes only a split second of deliberation before she's turned on her heel and is running at top-speed back to that hill.
"KAMINA?!"
He'll do what he wants, death isn't going to stop him!!
He glances around, trying to locate anything that might give him a direction where to go-- oh. Those look like gunmen over there, don't they? He figures that's as good of a direction as any to head toward, and even if it's not Simon and the others, he can at least steal a gunmen and try to figure out where they are from there. That should be easy enough--
But his thoughts are interrupted by a shout and he finally notices Yoko running towards him. Kamina grins, sauntering over to her almost as though he hasn't got a care in the world. His steps are a little faster than they need to be though; it's good to be back.]
Yoko! [He drags out the final o in her name a little bit, almost teasingly.] How have you been holding up, huh?
of course not. pfff.
Is this real? Did she fall asleep cleaning her rifle or something? Is she majorly dehydrated and hallucinating?
Yoko reaches out a hand to touch him and freezes when her fingers touch solid, warm skin. Real. He's real. The only person she's ever had vaguely romantic feelings for, the insuppressible hero, the founder of Team Gurren, the constant source of said team's hope for the future. Kamina the irreplaceable, the inimitable, the impossible and the invincible. Right in front of her. She could fling herself into his arms, cry hideous wracking sobs into his chest, lift up on her tiptoes and collect that ten times over he'd once promised her, if she wanted to.
Instead Yoko swings to clock him upside the head, embarrassingly teary-eyed. "Idiot!" she cries. "How am I holding up? You left us, you good-for-nothing--you died!"
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I know! The afterlife isn't all it's cracked up to be and I figured you guys would miss me, so I came back!
[Like it was that easy. ...Actually, it kind of was.]
You didn't have to punch me!
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Yoko glares up at him, totally lacking remorse. "Yes I did. I had to make sure you wouldn't get any of those stupid self-sacrificing last-ditch-charge urges again." Of course she knows that without Kamina's sacrifice, they wouldn't have Dai-Gurren--they'd likely not even have their lives--but still. She gives her eyes an industrious rub to chase away those pesky tears before she looks up at him again, at that ridiculous pained expression of his. Yes--it really is him--the same Kamina she knows and loves.
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I did what I had to do to help secure our victory. I'm not gonna lie, it hurt and the whole thing was pretty awful, but it worked, didn't it? Besides, if you seriously think you guys are getting rid of me that easily, you've got another thing coming!
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Don't think I'd let you leave again.
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Yeah. I know.
[He's sure Simon is torn up about this too, but for the moment he just wants to comfort Yoko. Simon will be okay; he's much stronger than he thinks he is, after all.]
I'm not gonna leave again. I promise.
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If his thoughts are on Simon, hers aren't far behind. Still, selfishly--as she has always been, a little, when it comes to Kamina--she hangs on for an extra few moments before releasing the world's favorite blue-haired wonder.
"Back to camp?"
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[Kamina lets go, still grinning.]
Have you guys been alright? You guys weren't too sad without me, were you?
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At this she pauses to look up at him. "You're--you were his whole world--you know that? He needed that clock in the face to get moving, but you weren't there to give it to him. He just sat in his room for days carving creepy little statues of you with his drill. Wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep. Once even when we were fighting Gunmen, Lagann went totally haywire and dove off a cliff. But then he found Nia."
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I know he's capable of more. He needs to believe in himself. I know it's hard to lose someone you care about... but you have to move forward.
[He pauses then, something occurring to him.]
Who's Nia?
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"Nia is Lordgenome's daughter. The Beastman princess, so to speak." She debates pausing for effect here, but decides to continue before Kamina charges straight into camp to murder this girl. "But she was cast out, apparently, and now she's part of Team Gurren... she has a different way of seeing the world. And I think she helped Simon see it differently, too." Now she does pause, contemplating those two for a moment. "That's part of it, at least, what pulled him out of that slump. I think another part is that he's got someone to protect now. And someone who'll believe in him no matter what--with total blind faith."
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Hearing that Simon has found someone to pull him out of his depression makes Kamina smile though.]
That's good to hear! It sounds sort of like the relationship we have, actually. Simon always trusts and believes in me, no matter what and in turn, he's someone I can look after and protect and support - it's great that he's found someone like that while I was... away.
[Saying that he was dead is kind of awkward.]
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[Kamina laughs, the sound loud and boisterous as usual.]
I guess I should've suspected that! More power to him, then! I hope this Nia girl is worth his time!
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Apparently Kamina's resurrection is taking place pre-beach filler episode...
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[Though that does raise a question...]
How did a beastmen princess get involved with us?
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