Hajime loses her last breath like a star in flight, one that falls, fritters and wheezes, like the dying ember of a firework.
Everyone is is there to watch her leave. But not one of them, not one, can get her to stay.
Tsubasa watches the coffin pass from hand to hand, wishing she were strong enough to stand and lay her palm flat on the surface. Wishing she were stronger still, to shoulder its weight and lift Hajime a little closer to the sky.
'I'm so sorry, so sorry,' she hears Gelsadra cry, his voice becoming lost in moments to a snuffling set of hiccups. His snot falls out in droplets of blue, the same shade as her NOTE, and Tsubasa shoves down the impulse to send it flying across the room. Losing it will do no good, not if it causes the promise she made to Hajime to fray and snap in two.
I will be a better Gatchaman, she thinks, and reaches out, letting the glove holding Gelsandra's hand crease within her own.
'There's no shame in it,' her Great-grandfather tells her later, uniting his words with an audible sniff. 'When I saw my brother laying there, stiff, as though he were made of paper and not skin, I had to turn and let the ground swallow my eyes. I could not look up to see the beauty of the sky for days. They called me a coward for it.'
'I'm not any braver,' she says, voice small and growing smaller as her Note weighs down in her pocket like a stone. 'I don't- you weren't a coward!'
He smiles, the wrinkles opening up round his mouth like a flower. 'No,' he says, 'but then, Tsubasa, I was not given the same wings to fly with that you were.'
Tsubasa stares at the chart, the circle glaring at her from within its divided lines of red and blue. The green wavers between them, a trickle of neutrality that barely presses back against the greedy cerulean sweeping up against its side.
'It's been decided! Gelsadra will leave earth!'
The world spins, wobbles. But Tsubasa's legs remain steady, comprised of an iron that forsook her weeks ago at the funeral of a girl she never really knew. People are talking she knows, the live studio audience jostling each other with gossip and gasps. And yet a blanket of hush seems to fall over her mind, giving her space to think.
If I were truly given wings to fly...then is it alright if I use them, sempai?
She does not forget to bow, tears trembling on her face as she thanks everyone for voting, before informing them that she's sorry, really, awfully sorry, but that she can no longer share the same planet with them.
Who does she think she is?
Stuck-up bitch.
Not fit to breath our air, is she?
Roflcopter you know she's too busy sharing it with that alien loser!
No, but isn't that like, paedophilia, now that he's not all aged-up anymore?
you go girl! living the dream! from shotacon to bishie-heaven with one twirl of that superhero cape!
Ew. There's always one, isn't there?
kick the race traitor out I say! let her be a NEET in space!
Erm, you meant species-traitor, right?
LoOL! OWNED!
shut up gramma-nazi.
It's grammar. And make me.
Tsubasa doesn't understand space ships. She doesn't understand the whirl of noise that surrounds her, or the way purple lights up the strips on the floor, or even the way she can taste gravity, and the way it falls on her tongue like a copper weight, smelling of fried batter even as it roots her down into her seat.
'Don't worry, Tubasa,' chirps Gelsadra, looking so solid, so serious, that for a moment Tsubasa can still glimpse the adult he pretended to be, trapped within his face. 'I won't let you die.'
But she doesn't have a reply ready for him. Not for anyone, not since the announcement. They had all looked at her like a stranger, except for Utsutsu, the girl simply staring down, as her hair fell off her forehead in a green slide that cut at her eyes.
Coward, the internet message-boards might have called her. But not Tsubasa. Not now.