All Teeth

Author's Note: Here I am, writing BR fic once more.

I've been working on this one for a couple of months. It's not finished yet, but if I were to guess, it's going to be around 30k words? I'm bad at estimations, lol. Also, expect a blend of humor and seriousness, because I'm all over the place with this one. Oh, and I'll probably be updating weekly!

Important thing to note: This fic talks a lot about a revolution that takes place in The Greater Republic of East Asia (or just Japan for movie/manga watchers/readers). I just want to clarify that this fic simplifies a lot of aspects of war for the sake of writing about the aftermath. I mention this to say that war is not usually so simple and that often the after effects socially are terrible. So please take this with a grain of salt, knowing that not everything in this fic is going to be 100% realistic.


The government overthrow hadn't been what Shinji Mimura had expected.

He'd spent years dreaming about it, had cultivated beliefs from his Uncle that such a thing was not only possible, but would eventually be an inevitability. He'd spent years prepping himself to be a part of it. He'd hung on his Uncle's every word and had learned everything he could from him about computer hacking, an art he continued to learn about even after his Uncle's murder.

And, perhaps, more than all of those things, he'd convinced himself that he could be good. He could be brave enough to join the fight. He could risk everything- could see that what he had really wasn't worth anything without true freedom- and he could do what was right.

It was because of those beliefs that the overthrow had surprised him so much.

For starters, it all went down quick. Shinji had always imagined it being long and drawn out. The Republic of Greater East Asia wasn't one that would go down without a fight, so he had figured at some point he'd have to go into hiding or be on the run from the government. But that hadn't happened.

One day they had had a dictator, and a secret oligarchy of sorts hiding behind him pulling the strings, and the next they were all dead and there were foreign soldiers in the streets and riots and protesting happening everywhere.

Shinji had figured such things wouldn't be televised with their government's strict control. For a while, he supposed he had been right. Days had passed where he had watched it on his computer while his classmates sat in the dark, laughing and carrying on as though their country wasn't at war and their leader's head hadn't been held up for everyone to see, body not included.

But then one day a station risked broadcasting it, and by the afternoon it was everywhere. Shinji remembered sitting one evening with Shuya Nanahara and telling him all that he knew. He remembered the all-encompassing look in Shuya's eyes that had screamed hope.

Shinji remembered telling Shuya to be careful and to keep his head down. Rebellions were never easy. But he knew Shuya well enough to know he'd have a new rock anthem written by the end of the week. A protest song of his own.

He himself had gotten involved at that point. He crashed government websites, set videos of the carnage to play on their sites, and wrote and passed around the web what could only be considered his manifesto on the fascist happenings of his country. And then he had dug deeper into internet forums.

His Uncle had always cautioned him against teaming up with others, but he'd done it just the same. Things were moving quickly, and he was staying up all night doing his part in the fight. That was how he'd ended up making ties with Shogo Kawada. As involved in the antigovernment movement as he was, he would never have guessed that the scars he'd seen on Kawada in gym class were from a Program the year prior.

Kawada had had a plan himself for some government revenge. Apparently their class was supposed to have been sent to the Program. But it's hard to send a bunch of 14 year olds to die when you're too busy trying not to die yourself, so 3-B was spared in the chaos. And Kawada was as pissed about it as he was relieved. But those were mixed feelings that had taken a long time to come out.

On the surface they were just two kids who were smart enough to do something. But underneath that, they were two kids who had lost enough that they were willing to be daring and just cautious enough to stay alive.

Had the fight been longer they might have died. Might have been taken in. Might have had to go into hiding. But that was a lot of might haves to say that they had gotten lucky. Apparently some other countries were sick enough of their fascist bullshit that they weren't going to let things last long.

It'd been three years ago that things had started and finally, except not finally because it all felt so quick, things were calming down.

And Shinji was thankful. He didn't need to spend all night on his computer looking for threats or ways he could help anymore. He had time for basketball again. His friends weren't constantly worried about him and looking at him like he was a time bomb. His sister wasn't begging to get involved.

Things were good for once. There were still power struggles going on, but things were better. They had a chance for stable leadership. Shinji had a chance at a happy life. He was 17 and could finally act like it.

But the thing was, maybe he hadn't expected it. Maybe he had expected the overthrow to be a hardship that took up the majority of his life.

Because as it was, when Shinji wasn't looking over his shoulder, when he wasn't on his computer, when he didn't have a ball in his hand, he didn't know what to do.

Be happy. Fall in love. That was what his Uncle had always told him.

But with the threat gone and the war over, he was left with the same reality that he'd always had.

He didn't know how. All of that, and he still didn't know how.

How lame, huh, Uncle?