The stars hurt worst of all.

They teased him, effortlessly dancing just beyond his reach.

Forever.

He could remember it so well, like the first taste of wine, or the first time he was ever made love to. The wind made a din in his ears that was not noise, just a rush of motion and life and speed and it was all his, he could touch it and taste it and feel it hammered into his breastbone, the sky reaching out to welcome him home... And he was going, soaring... flying…

Broken.

Perfection ripped from his grasp, the ease of what he had been torn from his fingers.

He hadn't noticed, at first, oh no. At first it was just good to be alive. Then the stars had called him one night, and he had stepped out onto the roof, and willed himself up...

And nothing happened.

It was worse than dying.

It was never existing in the first place.

He could jump high, to be true, but it was even harder than not having anything. It was a tease, a bitter reminder, bread after tasting paradise. He could not escape the pull of Earth's gravity on him. The starsong faded from his veins, so that what was once a vibrant chorus was now only a dim echo. He caught it when he was least prepared, when he had no defenses.

Toma had never been one to cry much, before. Now he truly knew what it was to grieve. He had lost the stars. He had lost himself. Things had begun to ravel after that, for all of them. They stayed apart longer, talked less, seeking elsewhere what they had once found inside themselves.

Trying to find their names.

Learning there were none left to them.

They drifted apart. The ties of blood and victory and loss became a reminder, as each was to the other, of what they had been. Each other's face was a hollow recollection, as a photo of a day before death. Finally they could no longer look at each other at all.

Toma left first. It surprised even him, one day to shut the door behind him and realize he wouldn't be coming back. He hadn't even brought anything with him. He hadn't said goodbye. He took only the aching shreds of his soul and fled.

Sometimes gifts are hidden with thorns, his father had once said, burning the midnight oil while researching his latest obsessive theory. Getting it means pricking your fingers. And sometimes there's nothing there.

Sometimes there's a princess.

They should have died. It was what the armor was for. It was her intent when she trapped them. Ryou was last, as Ryou was always last, better to be together in death than alone in a half-life with no purpose. He went willingly.

But they lived.

Toma, deep in slumber in his armored shell, heard it suddenly. Bright, sharp, brazen and delicate and heady and soothing. The galaxies were humming, screaming, whispering his name in harmonies he knew without knowing why.

And he knew he would never lose them again.

"Are you afraid?"

"No. Don't be ridiculous."

"You're afraid it won't work."

Damn Seiji and Shin.

"What if I fall?"

"You know better."

"We can't do this."

"Go. Tell us what it's like."

Seiji pushed at him lightly. "Go." He whispered. "Toma. Fly."

His armored feet were loud on the rooftop. It would never work. Science proved that.

"Bumblebees aren't supposed to be able to do it either." Seiji read his mind as easily as he once had, cool and familiar inside his soul.

He looked back at them, glittering, waiting, expectant. He felt them, hot and cool and bright and strong.

Always.

He stepped away, breathless, waiting for the pull of ground.

Fly, he told himself.

Fly.

The stars' throats sang with welcome, the clouds reached out loving arms.

Welcome home... welcome home...

Toma closed his eyes, life thundering into his heart like a volley of golden arrows, speed thrumming in his blood.

Flight.