Waking doesn't feel like waking. It feels like being pulled from the depths of a river that he fell into during autumn and was left to drown in as winter stole over the surface and froze every last drop.
He's been drowning for so long, it almost feels like he's forgotten how to breathe.
But he's breathing now, sharp and fast, staccato bursts of air in and out, in and out, in and out. There's a reassuring hand on his back and another clasped around his wrist. He coughs and splutters and keeps his eyes closed, and tries to remind his aching body that he isn't drowning anymore. He isn't submerged anymore. His lungs fill and empty and fill and empty and fill and empty and every breath seems to rake down his throat like the very air has hands that clench knives, like the very air is out to get him, like the air wants to cut and slice and hurt him.
He's scared to open his eyes, but a soft voice is assuring him it's okay, he can do it, nothing will hurt him. The whispers don't make him feel braver though. They terrify him. He doesn't want to open his eyes.
And then the voice says, "Don't be scared, Hinata-san. I'm here with you. We'll all be here with you."
His heart skips a beat and his eyes open with a jolt.
He realises that he had forgotten the name Hinata Hajime, but as his weary tired drink in the sight of Sonia Nevermind, of her ratty blonde hair, cut into a haphazard bob, with fraying ends and knots, he remembers it all. He remembers Jabberwock Island, and he remembers Hinata Hajime.
"Good morning," Sonia says, smiling. She closes those misty eyes of hers and smiles in such a pure, hopeful, open way.
Hinata Hajime has seen that smile a lot recently. Kamukura Izuru has never seen that smile. The only smile Kamukura Izuru has ever seen her is in a grin that gleams dirty and dark on a face covered in grime and blood. He swallows.
Sonia opens her eyes and lets them search every inch of his face. She runs a hand through her hair, seeming a little surprised when it stops so suddenly. She lets out a chuckle, but it's sad and pained, and nothing like the chuckle Hinata has grown used to, or Kamukura has listened to as Sonia has killed and despaired alongside him.
She says she doesn't remember why she cut it.
"I've always worn it long," she explains. "It's tradition for a princess. Maybe I wanted to break that tradition. Maybe I wanted to despair. Maybe I just wanted to-"
Her sudden stop is followed by a gulp. She looks away from him, casts her gaze to the ground, and then brings it back up to his face.
"Maybe I thought it would make it easier to keep all the blood out of it," she finishes.
He puts a hand up to his hair, which is long and smooth and curly. He plays with it for a moment, bringing his gaze over to it.
The he takes in the rest of the room. He and Sonia are both dressed in what looks like light blue hospital scrubs, but the material is soft, like cotton. There are wires coming out of his arms and it feels like there are some on his forhead, and he can see marks on Sonia's arms where those same wires must have been.
They're not the only people in the room, he realises. There are people in suits and lab coats, carrying clipboards and scurrying around and monitoring equipment.
They decided to wake up. He remembers that now. He remembers being told that they were ready and that the choice was theirs. They could wake up and the programme could be rebooted, and the five of them who had survived could wake up and watch the others get a second chance.
Hinata Hajime is glad to see them get a second chance. Kamukura Izuru is terrified he might mess it up again.
Sonia explains everything while scientists and doctors and people he doesn't care about pull out wires and run tests. She stays beside him the whole time, and she calls him nothing but Hinata.
He'd forgotten who Hinata Hajime was, but now he remembers everything. That uselessness. That boringness. That despair-inducing normality-
Except it's not despair-inducing. Not anymore. He's done with despair. He's done with Kamukura Izuru, with his body that was broken and beaten and then repaired and bent and twisted to work a certain way, to act with nothing but perfection and hope.
He hated the name Hinata Hajime. He hated it, and then he forgot it, and then he forgot he hated it. But now, now he's awake and he remembers the last twenty or so years of his life, he remembers being Hinata Hajime then Kamukura Izuru and then Hinata Hajime again, he is grateful for it. He's happy for it. He's glad. He's desperate for Hinata Hajime's name, for his normality, for his boring non-descriptness. Because Hinata Hajime does not have blood on his hands. Hinata Hajime has never killed. Never allowed himself to be manipulated and twisted and tricked.
He wants to breakdown and cry. He's starting to wish he had never allowed himself to wake up.
He's shaking when they dismiss him. Sonia helps him up, says she'll take him to her room and she'll request some scissors and they'll cut off all that hair. He doesn't say anything. He hasn't said anything since he woke up.
People in suits regard them strangely as they walk past, but Sonia pays them no heed. He wonders if she is used to those disgusted, suspicious looks they are sent. He clears his throat. She freezes, her eyes shining.
"Why does everyone look at us like that?" he whispers. His voice sounds low, husky, like he's forgotten how to speak.
Sonia smiles, and tilts her head to the side. "Well, Hinata-san," she drops her voice, like he dropped his. "We did bring about the apocalypse."
She waits for an answer, but he just looks down, ashamed. She leads him along again.
"I was the first one they woke up," she continues. "They thought I could be a friendly face; someone who would make everyone else feel reassured and safe when they woke up. Kuzuryuu-san was terrified when he woke. He cried an awful lot. Owari-san screamed and kicked a bit."
"Are they alright?" His voice still sounds wrong, like it's not his own.
"They're fine," she assures him. "Kuzuryuu-san has been very interested in making sure the project resumes safely, though I suspect that has more to do with Pekoyama-san than with the actual restoration."
He nods, and then decides not to say anything more until they reach Sonia's room. She's allowed a pair of scissors, though they're extremely blunt - probably a precaution to ensure she doesn't attack anyone with them.
She sings to him as she cuts his hair. She says it's an old Novoselic lullaby about rebirth. She thought it was fitting.
When she's done, she asks him if he likes it, and if it makes him happier, and he nods and says yes, but it doesn't. It doesn't because now, when he looks in the mirror, he sees Kamukura Izuru's eyes stare back at him from Hinata Hajime's face.
He can see the scars from his surgery. He thinks that might be why he allowed his hair to get so long.
Sonia leaves to return the scissors, and he stares at his face, which seems like a mish-mash of Hinata Hajime and Kamukura Izuru, and breaks down. He cries. He screams and he shouts and he buries his head in his hands and sobs like a baby because he is broken. He was broken by surgery and by Enoshima Junko and by the surgery that was meant to fix him, by this stupid programme that Kamukura messed with and that messed with Hinata.
He doesn't know who he is anymore.
Sonia calls him Hinata. The armed members of the Future Foundation, who rush in because they hear him screaming, call him Kamukura as they set up a perimetre around him and take aim in case he is about to rampage.
Nanami called him Hinata.
His breathing falters and he stops crying, just for a tiny second. Over the static of the Future Foundations walkie-talkies he can hear Sonia screaming that they let her in because it's her room and Hinata's not going to hurt anyone.
He stops crying. He puts his hands up and tries to show that he isn't going to hurt anyone.
His name is Hinata Hajime, and he is going to live on the way Nanami Chiaki intended him to.
"My name is Hinata Hajime," he calls out, "and I'm fine! I'm not a hazard and I'm not going to attack anyone!"
"He was just showing some goddamn normal human emotion!" he hears someone who sounds vaguely like Kuzuryuu but older, stronger, yell. He realises that he must have gathered outside the door along with Sonia.
"Yeah!" The next voice is Owari. She's there too. Hinata feels somewhat reassured by their pressence. "Isn't he allowed to cry? Isn't he allowed to show he's a living, breathing person with feelings like the rest of us?"
They all hear it. Very, very quietly. A member of the Foundation states;
You're not normal humans. You don't have emotions.
You shouldn't be alive.
Silence follows. It feels like an eternity. Hinata looks down. He imagines Sonia clenching her fists and Kuzuryuu muttering under his breath. But none of them say anything. None of them do anything.
He wonders if it's because they're all too scared, or because they all know it's true.
The command is given to move out. Hinata doesn't watch them leave. He does see Sonia come running in and throw her arms around his shoulders and apologise vigarously, for leaving him alone, for not paying better attention to how he was, but he tells her it's fine and she shouldn't be sorry. Owari followed her in, and offers him an obviously false smile.
"Welcome to the real world," she mumbles. "It's not all that great, I guess. But that's kind of our fault."
She chuckles nervously. Kuzuryuu, who is stood in the doorway, scoffs. Hinata knows that it's a joke but he still feels sick, like there's something heavy on his chest pushing it's way down and threatening to crush his heart and stop it from beating.
He wants to go back to sleep.
"I'm sorry," Owari looks down. "That probably wasn't the best thing to say."
Sonia nods, and strokes Hinata's arm soothingly.
Kuzuryuu coughs, and everyone looks at him. He tugs at the colour of his blue shirt, the same as Hinata's and Sonia's, and he asks, "Do you guys, uh, believe that?"
"Believe what?" Sonia responds, slowly and carefully.
"You know," Kuzuryuu kicks at Sonia's carpet. "That we're... That we're not people. That we should-"
"No," Sonia reacts instinctively. "No, I don't believe a word of it. That simulation was created to prove that we're human, that we have emotions, that we are capable of change. And even if we hadn't undergone it, I believe our original selves would have shone through the mask of despair eventually!"
Kuzuryuu rubs his eyes - or rather, one of his eyes, which gleams bright blue. Hinata shudders for a second as he realises what that means. He can't imagine what the rest of them feel, but he realises they must be going through the same as him, to some extent. They must all be having some sort of identity crisis. They're adults. He has no idea how old they are, or if age still exists in this world they destroyed and then forgot they destroyed, but he'd guess they're all early to mid twenties, at most. And yet, in that room, they're all orphaned children, confused, afraid, figuring out who they are.
They're reborn, but they cannot shake away their past lives, their past memories, their past.
Hinata realises why they woke Sonia first. She was born to lead. She was taught and trained how to make people feel safe, and valued. It's hard for him to imagine how someone as strong-willed as her stood beside him - stood beside Kamukura Izuru - as the world came down in fire and despair.
She strokes his hair. It's comforting, motherly. Owari sits down on the floor, and Kuzuryuu creeps towards them, and sits down, and joins them.
"We've been given a second chance," she whispers. Her voice catches and Hinata knows she's about to cry, but she stays strong. She stays strong for them. "We've lost friends, and memories, and parts of ourselves. We've done things. Terrible, horrible things. But now it's over. It's over and we can start again. Tomorrow, after Souda-san joins us, they'll reboot the programme. They'll try to give the others another chance."
"But it might not work," Kuzuryuu states, looking down.
"Then we have to try our best to change, for them. We have to be the furthest away from Super High School Level Despair it's possible to be. We have to change the world in their memory." Sonia's voice is determined. It wavers and wobbles, but she has a vision and Hinata knows it.
There's a pause, and he knows they are all thinking about people they lost. People they loved.
But Hinata knows Nanami won't wake up. Even if the project is rebooted. Even if the reboot succeeds.
Sonia begins to hum. It's the lullaby she was singing earlier. It's soft and gentle, and something about Sonia speaking in her mother tongue is so different to her speaking Japanese. It's more natural. Even the parts of her language that sound like they should be jolted or harsh sound perfectly rounded. And there, in that room, a princess with no country sings to a gangster with no weapon, a gymnast without a trainer, and a gifted student with no gift. She sings to them of rebirth, of rising from ruin, of falling from fate's path but finding your way there again and walking with your head held high. And she sings with such conviction that Hinata nearly thinks he will find the path fate made for him, and tread it with pride.
But even there, even where he feels safe, and secure, and loved, he knows that even if Hinata Hajime can find his fate, Kamukura Izuru will always be there, waiting to re-emerge and follow his destiny too.
He supposes it's ironic that the student manufactured to bring more hope than any other ended up bringing nothing but despair. He wondered if that's why Enoshima Junko went after him, why she made him kill so many people and kickstart the Worst, Most Despair-Inducing Incident, the Tragedy, the apocalypse.
He decides that living as Hinata Hajime is the best revenge he can have against Enoshima for what she did.
And so, as Sonia sings and Kuzuryuu's eyes begin to close, and Owari yawns, Hinata resolves that that's what he will do.
He will say goodbye to despair once and for all, and he will live a life full of hope.
He will live the life Enoshima Junko took away from so many, and he will fix the world that he broke, better than anyone ever fixed him.
And then, after the world is repaired, maybe he'll try to fix his head too.