Congratulations.

You've come this far. Congratulations.

You've worked so hard. Congratulations.

You've done so much. Congratulations.

Congratulations.

Are you tired? It's been a long journey.

Congratulations.

You seem tired.

Congratulations.

Was it worth it?

Congratulations.

Did you find what you were looking for?

Congratulations.

Was it worth it?

Congratulations.

Did you find what you were looking for?

Congratulations.

Hi. I'm Shigeko.

Hi. I'm Mob.

Hi.

Hello.

Mushi-mushi.

Kon'nichiwa.

Hajimemashite.

Ohayo.

Kon'nichiwa, hajimemashite. Watashi no tame ni soko ni ite kurete arigatō. Watashi wa soko ni modotte hijō ni obiete imashitaga, ima wa zutto kibun ga yoku natte imasu. Wao. Sore wa totemo kowakattadesu. Watashi no yūjin-tachi ga genkidearu koto o negatte imasu. Watashi no otōto ga daijōbudearu koto o negatte imasu. Watashi no shishō ga yūnōdearu koto o negatte imasu. Kareshi ga daijōbudearu koto o negatte imasu.

I hope that you're alright.

Am I alright?

Watashi wa daijōbu ka dō ka wakarimasen.

Did you find what you were looking for?

Did you find anything at all?

Were you even searching for something?

I feel like I was. I feel like was looking for something once. I feel like I was looking for AN ANSWER, maybe, but I don't even know what the QUESTION was.

What was the question?

What is your question?

There were some people on a train.

19 people get off the train at the first stop.

17 people get on the train.

Now there are 63 people on the train.

How many people were there on the train to begin with?

I got that question wrong.

Was that your question?

What was your question?

What is the question?

And what is the answer?

999.

Solutions without answers.

Meanings without problems.

Am I meaning?

Am I truth?

The truth?

We all have truths. Are mine the same as yours?

What are you?

What am I?

Yes, I'm a witch.

I was a magical girl.

Then I became a witch.

The best of all magical girls became the worst of witches. That's what happened to Madoka at the end of Madoka Magica. That's a show I like. Well it's a manga too but I haven't read all the manga yet. I saw the whole show, though, and the movie. I was a magical girl but then I turned into a witch. I think that's what happened to me. I think that's what happened. I think that I became the worst of all witches. I think that's what happened.

Was that the question?

Or maybe I ended the world again. Maybe I'm not a magical girl. Maybe I'm an angel. Maybe I'm an angel in human form. Maybe I destroyed the world. Maybe I took the world apart and broke it down and returned everything to nothing. But that would be a good thing. Instrumentality. That's what happened. I wouldn't mind that. If everything is back to nothing and everyone can understand everyone else and everyone can be happy.

Congratulations.

Congratulations.

Omedetō.

CONGRATULATOJNS.

I just want to be happy.

I just want my friends to be happy.

I just want everyone in the whole world to be happy.

What did you want?

Did you get what you wanted?

Did you find what I was looking for?

Did I find what you were looking for?

Is that what happened?

Are you still there?

Touichirou?

What about you?

Have you been here the whole time?

Have I been here the whole time?

What time is it?

Is it dark outside or light?

Does that even matter?

Jinsei de nanika jūyōdesu ka? Nani no pointodesu ka? Mewotojiru to,-iro ya moyō, katachi ga miemasu. Ima sorera o miru koto ga dekimasu. Watashi no me wa tojite imasu ka? Mewotojite imasu ka? Mada me ga arimasu ka? Watashi mo jūyōdesu ka? Anything wa jūyōdesu ka? Sore ga mondaidesu ka? Shitsumon wa nanidesu ka?

Does anything in life matter? What is the point of anything? When I close my eyes i see colors and patterns and shapes. I can see those now. Are my eyes closed? Are your eyes closed? Do I even still have eyes? Do I even matter? Does anything even matter? Is that the question? What is the question?

I have very good English scores.

Master Reigen helps me. Master Reigen helps me with everything. He's someone very important.

I love him.

I love a lot of people.

But I'm in love with him.

What is love?

Teru too.

What is love?

Love is caring about someone. Love is wanting to be with them all the time. Love is fighting for someone. Love is dying for someone. Love is being able to say I'm sorry to someone. Love is being able to say goodbye to someone. I said goodbye. I said goodbye to everyone. Then I fought for them. Then I saved them. Then I died.

I died.

Am I dead?

I can't feel my body.

I can't see.

I can't hear.

I can't feel.

I can't smell.

I can't taste.

I can only think.

What am I thinking about?

Evangelion Unit One. That's my favorite. I think about that a lot. I think about it a lot because it makes sense. Sometimes you just have to get in the robot. Sometimes you have to do the right thing even if you don't want to. You do things because people are happy with you when you do them. If they aren't happy in the moment then they will be happy later. I got in the robot even though nobody wanted me to. I had to do it because I was the only one who was strong enough to fight. I did fight. I fought and I won. I fought and I lost. Did he win? Did you win? Did I win? Did anyone win? Was this a winners and losers thing? What were we even fighting about? The fate of the world? I don't think that I ever cared about the fate of the world. I was selfish like that. I fought for the people I loved and cared about. I fought because they were in danger and I was the only one who could save them. I did it for them. That as how I knew that I could win. Or at least not lose. I don't think that I lost. I don't think that I won.

I don't know what happened.

I don't know what I am.

I don't know what this is.

It doesn't hurt. Whatever this is it doesn't hurt. I don't feel anything anymore. I'm not in pain. Is this a world without pain? I'm not sad anymore. Is this a world without sorrow? That's all that I've ever wanted, I think, a world without pain or sorrow. A world where everyone could be happy. A world where I could be happy. A world where I have friends and stuff and I'm happy.

A world where you're just like everyone else.

But that can never be. Maybe I could make the world. Maybe I could remake the world into one where everyone is happy. Into one where everyone can have whatever they want. I could have friends, I do have friends, and my friends could be happy. My parents could love me again. My little brother could be safe. I could be safe. I could make sure that everyone was safe.

I could fix this.

Is it broken?

Am I broken?

What is broken? What does it mean to be broken? And who decides what's broken and what isn't? I don't think that I get to decide what's broken and what isn't. I think that the world is overflowing with emptiness and meanness and sorrow and pain and I want to fix it but it's not my place to do so. Touichirou thought that it was his place to fix the world, to make it into what he thought that it should be, and then we had to fight. He did things to get to where he was when we met. So many bad things.

I'm sorry to all the people you hurt.

I'm sorry to all the people you killed.

And I'm sorry about Masami.

It isn't as though you've been walking the righteous path either.

You've hurt everyone you've ever met. Emotionally. You know it and you hate it. You hate harming others, burdening others, and in hating that you take on a greater burden for yourself. This was not your fight. You did not have to play any part in this. in fighting you hurt them, the people who care about you the most, and it hurts you.

I'm sorry.

Congratulations.

You've lost control more times than you can count.

So?

So have you.

You lost.

You lost.

Congratulations.

Have you found what you were looking for?

Have you?

What were you looking for? What were you really looking for? I think that you were looking for what you were most afraid of. You don't like to be alone so you were looking for others. You wanted to make a world where you were surrounded by people just like you. You wanted those invisible bonds that people form with one another. You wanted them more than anything else in the entire world but you were afraid. You were afraid that you would be weak. When you think of weakness you think of being just like everyone else. You thought that you were strong and that they were weak. You thought that your powers, your strength, made you complete. You didn't want those invisible bonds, you told yourself, because if you had them. If you wanted them. If you had and wanted them then you would be incomplete.

That scares you.

That scares you as well.

You're so terrified of being incomplete. You've forged those bonds with others and they had made you both strong and weak. Would you have done all of this if not for them? Would you have found the strength to do what you have done? You have so much strength within you but it terrifies you. It terrifies you because your strength sets you apart. It strains those invisible bonds that you've formed with others. I am not your enemy. Fear is your enemy.

Fear is my enemy,

Fear is the enemy.

Fear is the enemy.

Maybe we're both just terrified people.

Are we?

Both people.

What are we?

A we? Or an I? what's the difference even, anymore? You are fond of that word. What word? That word. Instrumentality? Yes, that one. You seem to be grasping at that word. Is this it? I have no idea. Well do you understand me? I think so. Do I understand you? I think so. Do we understand everyone? I don't know. Do you know? I don't know. What is this, then? I don't know. What are we, then? I don't know. Am I witch? I don't know. Am I still a magical girl? I don't know. Am I still a villain? To me or to you or to everyone? I don't know. I don't think that you're a villain. You don't? No, because you're sorry.

Sorry.

Yes.

I'm sorry.

Yes.

Are you sorry?

Yes

For what?

For everything. For hurting my little brother. For hurting my friends. For hurting Teru. For hurting Master Reigen. For hurting you. For causing you pain. For not doing more to help you. For not doing more to help me. For not doing more. I should have done more. I should have been more. But I wasn't more. I was just this thing. This thing that I am together.

You hate yourself.

Sometimes.

You're terrified of others hating you.

Yes.

Congratulations.

Congratulations.

You could have been strong in the real way. I know that you could have been strong in the real way.

The real way? I am strong in the real way and I wish that we could have been strong in the real way.

So you are strong in the real way, then. You're strong enough to know your own strength. You're strong enough to know your own weakness. You're strong enough to know yourself. You're the strong one and I am the weak one. That is why this is my retribution.

What is this?

The void.

Forever?

Eternity expanding out in all directions. The vastness of the universe with no beginning, no middle, and no end. Just the endless void. Reach out to it. Reach out with what? Just reach. I am. It hurts, why does it hurt? I don't know. When did it start hurting? I don't know. When will it stop hurting? I don't know. What does the pain mean? I don't know. I thought that this was a world without pain? Without sorrow? You didn't want to make the world into what you wanted it to be. I want a world where it doesn't hurt. This hurts us both. Does it? Reach into it. I am. It hurts. It does. Why does it hurt? I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know either.

But what's the point of knowing? There is some freedom in this, not knowing, and not having to know. Just being. Just being in this void. I wonder if this is what pre-life is like. I wonder if this is what death is like. I wonder quite a few things. I suppose that I have always wondered quite a few things.

Did you find what you were looking for?

Congratulations.

Why do we all have to be looking for something? I don't want to be looking for anything. I have friends, I have Master Reigen, I have the best little brother in the world, and I have Teru who loves me more than anyone else in the entire world. I should be happy. I shouldn't be looking for answers or questions or anything like that. Nobody is complete. I know that I am not complete. I can become complete with the invisible bonds I have formed with others. The me that exists in the minds of others completes the me that exists in my mind.

I'm happy.

Congratulations.

I'm so happy.

Congratulations.

I'm happy because I have so many people in my life who I love and who love me. I'm happy. I'm happy and I have no reason to be unhappy. I didn't win and I didn't lose. I went through a long series of events to get to where I am now. This is just another event in my life. The story of my life is continuing. This is not the last chapter of my life. This is not the OVA of my life. This is just another part of it. I am so happy. I have so many people in my life, I exist in so many pieces in the minds of others, and so many of them exist in my mind…we all exist within each other. This is instrumentality. Every single day of life is instrumentality. Within every single moment of exist we exist within our own minds and within the minds of others. They also exist within our minds. In doing that we understand each other as well as we understand ourselves.

We understand ourselves?

We don't! We really don't! And it's wonderful! Nobody understands anything and in not understanding anything we understand everything! We can't truly understand one another because we can never truly understand ourselves. So, you see, that's the answer and the question all in one. The beginning and the end truly are one in the same.

They are.

So, really, I should stop this. It's over. I won. I won and I lost. Now I have to go. I'm sorry but I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now. I have to go now.

Bye.

Goodbye.

See you later.

Bye-bye.

See you later.

See you tomorrow.

I'm leaving now.

Excuse me for leaving so soon.

Goodbye. In the big way.

Ja ne.

Baibai.

Mate ne.

Mata ashita.

Itte kimasu.

Osaki ni shitsureshimasu

Seishikina sayonara.

Are you still here?

Congratulations.

There was a stillness to the world. A stillness to Reigen. Reigen and stillness went together about as well as soy sauce and lemonade. Apples and bacon chips. Milk and orange juice. Cigarettes and mochi, those big ones from the vending machine next to the cigarette vending machine at the train station. That had never stopped him from getting one on the way home from work. One for Mob, too, though she never had the taste of mochi fighting against the taste of cheap cigarettes for dominance on her tongue. No, she so rarely smoked. Such a bad habit. He really should have quit by now. He was such a bad influence on Mob sometimes. All of the times. He really should have been better for her. He really should have worked on being better for her, being a better man for her. Maybe if he had been a better man for her then things would have gone differently for them. Maybe if he had been a better man for her then things would have ended differently.

"Where are we?" someone was scared. Oh…he knew that voice. One of Mob's friends. The little fire bug. Reigen wanted to answer, he wished that he could have answered, but he had no idea where he was or what was happening. It was dark. No, his eyes were closed. He opened them.

Dirt.

Dirt in his eyes.

"We…we're alive! Who cares where we are….we're alive!" another one of Mob's friends. The kid that wore a lot of white and hung around with the fire bug. The kids were alive. At least two of the kids were alive. Reigen reached up…he was under something….dirt. He was half buried in the dirt. It took some work to get his arms out but he did.

Then he brushed the dirt from his eyes.

"We…we won…..we fucking won! I mean I knew that we would win the whole time. We had the power of friendship on our side and with the power of friendship you can't lose. Right? Guys? Someone back me up here…." Reigen shook his head and sat up as best as he could. His clothes were in tatters and his body…he felt fine…good…all of the aches and pains that he had felt were gone…

It was dark outside.

Not totally.

The sky was turning pink. For a moment he thinks that it's still happening. That the…the whatever it was…was still happening. Night had turned into day. The sky had filled with pink and blue and red and yellow, in that order, before all the colors merged into this white light…and then nothing. Then a whole lot of nothing.

It had been quicker than going to sleep.

"Go…shut up…just shut up…" Reigen knew that voice well. Even now, dry and cracking, he knew it. Even when it wasn't accusing him of God only knew what Reigen knew it. That damn kid…that stupid fucking kid…that stupid fucking kid who had thrown himself into all of this…and the others…

Reigen couldn't be mad at him.

Because they were all a bunch of stupid kids. That was what being a kid was, being stupid, being stupid enough that you dove head first into danger, mortal danger, with only your own assurances that you would make it out. Damn these kids. None of these kids had been willing to listen to reason and they had almost…

If not for Reigen they would have all died.

The only kid that Reigen wanted to be responsible for was Mob.

"What are you so pissed off about? We won!" said the kid, Go. Reigen wiped enough dirt from his eyes that he could see clearly. The sun was rising. Pink and blue filled his vision. There was enough light to see by…somewhat. To see all of the kids…their clothes were ruined but they all looked alright…and so did those scars…though Reigen wondered if they could still be called scars, now. They were digging themselves out of the ground, the dirt….where had all of this dirt come from? They were…Reigen had no idea where it was that they were. There was something…something that he could feel. Mob. This whole area felt like Mob….

Where was Mob?

"Teru…come on. I know it's been hard but you don't have to be an asshole-" said Go. Reigen let the swearing go. He had other things to worry about…like where Mob was. He could feel her…everywhere. Like he had dove into the swimming pool that was her aura…but different. Because he had no way of honing in on her…he had no idea where the focal point of her feelings were…

Or even what her feelings were.

"I said to shut the fuck up!" said Teru. Reigen felt…his chest was tight. The corners of his eyes prickled with tears that he was not going to shed. He felt…he ached. There it was, the pain, but not…it was and was not physical. He wanted to yell and scream and cry out and-and-and-

Where was Mob?

"Teru…" There. That was Mob's little brother…but that was not Mob…and he couldn't see her. He could see all the kids…but not Mob. That made sense. Mob hadn't been with them when the…the whatever it was….happened. The explosion. When they had been running for their lives. Mob hadn't been running. She had told them to run…

"Ritsu…shut up. Shut up and leave me alone. Just leave me alone…" said Teru. Reigen could feel it. Tears continued to prickle at the corners of his eyes. His vision went glassy. He still wanted to run and yell and break things. He wanted to more than anything else in the world. He wanted-

Something knocked him back.

And something else caught him.

He could see it. Purple. He had been pushed by gold and caught by purple. Another set of emotions. Fear. Now he was afraid. Now he felt like the floor had fallen apart beneath his feet even though he was standing firmly on the ground. He felt the ground beneath his shoes. It was there even though it felt like it wasn't. He was alone. He was all alone now. The world was too big and he was all alone and he had no idea what it was that he was supposed to do-

"A-Are you ok?" He was being addressed. It took him a moment to realize that he was being addressed. That man…what he had said his name was? The one who saved his life. The one in the pajamas and crocs and bright orange bathrobe who saved his life…and Reigen would have laughed at the ridiculousness of it all of this if his heart had not been trying to beat its way out of his ribcage.

"I'm fine. I'm fine…I am. This is all…this is fine." Said Reigen. Now it felt like mad and afraid and…and also was that…that was despair…they were fighting it all out inside of himself…but he could not let them win. He had…he had to keep calm and keep control. Mob…she worked so hard each and every day to keep control…and so could he…

He had to. He had to be…he had to be the man Mob had always seen him as. The one that existed in her mind. In his mind as well. He needed to be the great Reigen Arataka…he needed to because this was not over. The fight was over, a new day was dawning, but it was not over. The horizon…the skyline was back in some places…but it was also dominated by…a tree? Some kind of awful tree…it was hard to look at it. It was hard to…to think about. To see it…he didn't know if he should have turned to it or away from it. He didn't know if he should have turned to the tree and faced the unknown of it, the wrongness of it, or if he should face everyone and take the full force of the collective feeling…feelings…so many…

He let himself latch onto the loudest of them.

"So now you care about someone other than yourself?" Reigen knew that voice too. The red haired kid. Mob's little brother's friend. The hurt kid…but he was not hurt, not anymore it seemed. He was standing on his own two feet now. His clothes were just as ruined as everyone else's but he was standing, now, and the bruises that had covered him from head to toe were gone.

But he was not fine.

He was pissed off. The kind of pissed off that made Reigen take a step back. The kind of pissed off that could put Mob's boyfriend to shame. That kid. That poor kid. No kid should have had to feel like that. None of those kids should have had to feel like that. Like this. This cocktail or fear and rage and elation and joy and despair and God only knew what else….

"Sho…I always cared about you-"

"You would have let him kill me!"

"I-I didn't know what to do-"

"You knew what to do, you just didn't care enough to help me. To save me. You saved him, some guy you don't even know, but you wouldn't save me."

"Sho….please."

"Please what? Forgive you for leaving me to die? How am I supposed to forgive that?! Who could forgive that?! You were my friend! You were my friend and you just left me there to die!"

Reigen covered his ears and turned away from the fight in front of him. No, it wasn't even the fight. The kid was just screaming…and he had every right to. That kid had been in terrible shape…and his own father had done that to him. His own father. That man. The man that Mob had fought. That Mob had…

Where was Mob?

Reigen turned away from one fight and ended up facing another.

"Teru, please. You're not making sense-"

"She's gone! Your sister is gone! My girlfriend is gone!"

"We do-don't know that. She could be-"

"She's gone! Do you see her here? Do you see her anywhere?"

"Her aura-"

"That's not good enough! I DON'T SEE HER! I don't see her! Just…this doesn't even feel like her aura! I know what she feels like! This is not what she feels like! She's gone! She's gone! Can't you see it?! Can't any of you see it? Shigeko is gone! She's gone, she's not coming back, and there's…there's nothing that I can do…I lost her…"

"Stop saying that! My sister is not dead! She is not dead…I would have noticed…I can see her aura! She's not dead! She's not…she said that she…that she was coming back…and she…she can't be dead. Sister…she's not dead."

Reigen hunched down and screwed his eyes shut. She covered his ears and closed his eyes and just tried not to be…there. Present in that moment. He did not want to be present in that moment. Fighting. More of it. He didn't want…he didn't want this. He was sick of this. Sick of all of it. He did not risk his life leading these kids to safety just to have them kill each other now!

Reigen just wanted this to be over.

Rei just wanted this to be over.

"Stop it! Just stop it!" shouted Rei. She was alive. She was happy to be alive. She had, for a brief moment, been happier than she had ever been at any point in her entire life. She had woken up half buried in the dirt all wrapped up in Ritsu's arms, he was alive too, and then the others had woken up and then, at that moment, she had been so happy and ok and everything else had been ok…

But things were not ok.

Because they weren't all there.

And also there was fighting. Rei was sick and tired of all of this fighting. She had been so happy and she wanted to continue to be happy…but she could not. Not when all of this was happening. Not when Ritsu and Teru were rolling around in the dirt fighting…and now Takeshi and Go were trying to pull them apart….

There had been so much fighting already.

"My sister is not dead! Take it back! Take it back!" shouted Ritsu. He sounded like a kid. He felt like a kid. He was a kid. He was a kid and he was scared…and he shouldn't have been. They had all lived through that…that explosion. They had lived through the sky turning colors and catching fire and…and then the shockwave had picked them up…and he went unconscious…but he woke up and he was alive and everyone around him was alive so that meant that Shigeko must have been alive too.

Because she was Shigeko.

She was strong. She was stronger than he had any chance of ever being. She was the strongest being in the whole world and she would not die like that. In that explosion. She would not die and she did not die. Shigeko was still alive. She had to be. He was not going to give up hope. The sun was coming up, it was a new day, and with it came hope. It was over. It had been going on for so long but now it was finally over. Now everything could get back to normal. Claw was finished and with the end of Claw would come the end of the fear that had been sticking to him, to all of them, like a curse that could not be lifted. They would be ok. They would all be ok. It was over and they were all ok.

Shigeko was ok.

"Get the fuck off of me! She's gone, Ritsu, your sister is gone! The love of my life is gone! My girlfriend…she's gone…she's gone and you have no idea what this is like! So get the fuck off of me! She's gone. She gave her life for mine…for yours…for all of us…and she's gone." Said Teru. He could not stop saying it. It just came out like vomit, word vomit, and no matter what he could not stop it. Stop saying these terrible words even though they caused him so much pain…

Shigeko was gone.

The love of his life was gone.

He would never see her again. He would never meet up with her before school again. He would never see her eyes light up again. They always lit up when she saw him. He would never hold her again. He would never kiss her again. He would never share himself with her again. He had no one. She had been his everything, the one person in this world that never would have left him….and she was gone.

And he was pissed.

She had promised! PROMISED! SHE HAD MADE HIM A PROMISE! She had told him that she would never, ever, ever leave him. That she would always be there for him. That she would always be his. That she was his and he was hers and that they would have forever together. But she had lied. She had died and she had lied. Her aura was everywhere, like a fog hanging in the air, but there was no focal point. None. No place where her aura sprang forth from. Not even off in the distance. Just that stupid tree…

It felt weird to look at it.

But it also felt like Shigeko.

So he didn't know.

He didn't know where it had come from. He didn't know what happened. All he knew was that Shigeko was nowhere to be seen. He had seen it, the explosion, he had been the one to face it the longest. Even after the shockwave sent him flying he had still made sure to watch it. It had been beautiful. The explosion had been a dome at first but then it grew into a person. At first just the outline of on, a head and a body and hands, but then the head grew hair and eyes and the hands grew fingers and the body grew a belly button, and for a moment all he could think about was how ticklish Shigeko was, and then for a moment he had been looking at his girlfriend…and then everything went white.

Then he woke up.

And Shigeko was not there.

And he looked for her. He looked for her with his aura even though his range was not good. He even looked to Reigen, Reigen had always been in her aura even though he swore up and down that he did not have a thing for Shigeko, and Reigen had started freaking out and then Teru…he just knew. He knew it in his heart, in his soul, to be true. Shigeko…she was gone. She was well and truly gone. Gone from him like she had sworn that she never would be. Gone from this world. Gone, gone, gone a millions times gone.

And he was all alone.

Ritsu was under him. Someone was trying to pull him off of Ritsu. Someone was crying. Someone else was yelling. That didn't change the fact that Teru was more alone then than he had ever been in his entire life. He didn't know what to do without Shigeko. He didn't know who he was without Shigeko. He had changed for her and he had stayed changed for her. He had become the person that she wanted him to be, the Teru that existed in her mind. The one who existed in his mind…the one who existed in life…the Teru that he had been before he met her was not…he did not want to be that person. But he had only changed for her. Everything that he did, literally everything, had been for her. Shigeko.

He was all alone.

And it pissed him off.

So he hit.

He hit and he yelled.

He yelled out the most hurtful things that came to mind. He told Ritsu that he had no idea what it felt like to lose someone you loved. He told Ritsu that he would never love someone the way he loved Shigeko. He told Ritsu that it was his fault that all of this had happened. He told Ritsu that if he hadn't been such a bastard before, if he hadn't gotten kidnapped then Claw would never have known about Shigeko or any of them and they wouldn't have had to get involved in all of this. He told Ritsu that if he had been a better little brother then his sister would have still been alive.

It made him feel better.

This was the old Teru. The one who hurt others to make himself feel better. The one who beat people up to make himself feel powerful. The one who made other people hurt just as much as he was hurting. That was the person who Shigeko had met and that was not the person who Shigeko had wanted him to be. What did it even matter anymore? She was gone. Shigeko was gone.

"Shut up! Shut up! Just shut the hell up!" said Ritsu. He wasn't even listening to Teru anymore. He knew that if he listened then he might have been, have ended up being, even more pissed off than he already was. He didn't want to do this, to be this person. He had been this person before, briefly, and it had…it had ended up costing him everything. Literally everything.

This was all his fault. Like Teru had said. Like he was saying. Like he was saying over and over and over again even though he knew fully well that Ritsu had heard him just fine the first time. This was why he needed to stop listening.

He had been hurting inside so he had made people hurt on the outside.

And in hurting others he had made himself feel more powerful. Made him feel better, and he needed to feel better. Even if he was hurting his friend. Even if he was being someone terrible. This was not the person that he should have been. He should have been a good little brother and not….well now there was no point, now was it? Now he wasn't anyone's little brother at all. Now he was just Ritsu. Kageyama Ritsu. The only Kageyama. Shigeko was gone. She was gone and…and he needed her to be ok…but Teru kept on saying that she was gone….

And he…he wanted to go home.

He was pulled, hard, and now he could see the sky. It was blue, now, and getting bluer. This was how the sky looked when he got up in the morning for school. Was it is a school day? He didn't know. He didn't knowing anything anymore. It was light outside and his sister was gone and he just wanted to go home. He wanted to go home to his house and his parents…and his sister. But she wouldn't have been at home. That was his fault. He was the one who drove her from their home…the home that he wanted nothing more than to go back to-

It had burn down.

It was gone.

Sho's doing, true, but Ritsu's fault. He had been the one who had gotten himself involved in all of this. Now he had no house and no sister and just….he had nothing. Nothing at all.

Teru was screaming at him.

Sho was screaming at someone else.

Rei was screaming, too.

Very noisy.

And he finds himself telling everyone to shut up. Telling the world to shut up. He wished that they, everyone, the whole world would just shut up and let him think. He needs to think about…he doesn't even know what. He just wants to go home. He just wants to go home to his bed in his room with his arguing parents and the empty bedroom next to his and the sunlight coming down through his window. Wait, no, the curtain would have been closed….

Or not, if Sho decided to make him breakfast again.

Heh.

At least one good thing had come out of this. He had met Sho. He had met Sho properly this time. Heh. He'd made a friend. He could always use more friends. Even if he had probably lost one of the best friends he'd ever had. Teru…Teru was right…and Ritsu…Ritsu could not let Teru be right. Even if he was right. Even if Ritsu knew that he was right. Even if in denying the truth, the truth that he knew in the core of his being as being the truth, he was losing one of the best friends he'd ever had.

He sucked.

This sucked.

Life sucked.

Life sucked but he wanted to go home just the same. It was an all over feeling, the feeling that he wanted to go home, and that was why he was shaking. Big, all over, shakes. Everywhere. He didn't know what he was supposed to do. It was just him now. No more older sister. Just him and him alone. He was an only child now. He'd never been an only child before. That was who he had to be now. Kageyama Ritsu. Good student, good boyfriend, and good only child. A crazy thought. He wishes that he had been the older brother, not the younger brother, because then he would have had some experience at being an only child. A whole year. Heh. He had no idea how to be an only child.

Or a friend.

Or a boyfriend.

She was saying something, now, his girlfriend. Rei. She was begging him to stop fighting. She was upset. She needed him. She loved him. She loved him and she just wanted him to be ok. She had saved all of them. They would have died if not for her, for her powers, and he owes her his life. He owes her so much…and the least he could do would be to be the person who she wanted him to be. The least he could do was knock it off. The least he could do was listen to her.

"She's not dead! She's not dead! I can tell! She's not dead!" said Rei. She said it as loud as she could. She could feel it with certainty, one hundred percent certainty, that Mob was still alive. She knew it with the same certainty that she knew that the sun would rise today, tomorrow, and again and again until she died. She knew that Mob…Mob hadn't died….and she was so happy…

This was the best day of her life.

Even if she had almost died so many times. She was alive now and that was what mattered. She wanted to go home. She didn't live anywhere near where all of this had happened. Her family was probably ok and probably worried sick. She wanted to go home and get yelled at by her parents and fight with her sister and do all of her late homework and clean her room and do the rest of her chores and all of the stuff that she had taken for granted before.

She was alive.

She had Ritsu.

She had her friends.

And the explosion was over. That terrible explosion. The one she had dreamt about. The one that she had seen hanging in the horizon of her future vision. It had been amazing. It had been terrifying. It had been so much at once…and it had been so…she didn't have words for it…and she didn't need them. She'd draw it later when she got home.

When they got home.

Because Ritsu's home had burnt down. He could stay with her….and now she's even happier. All of her friends were alive and all of their injuries were healed and it was another day and…and everything was ok. The world…the world was saved and everyone had lived…and it was good.

"Wh-what?" asked Ritsu. Teru stopped yelling, finally, and was just staring at them. Ritsu knew how he felt. Rei…there was a chance that Rei was just saying what they wanted to hear…but no. Rei was no liar. She must have been telling the truth.

"Where? Where's Shigeko?" Asked Teru. His voice hurt…he had been yelling a lot….but now he was done. He was done and that was done because Shigeko would not have wanted him losing control like that. What Shigeko wanted mattered. She was still alive. Rei knew. Rei had future vision…and possibly present vision too…and she knew and Teru believed her. He believed her. He believed her more than he had ever believed in anyone or anything in his entire life.

"There. She's…somewhere under there…" said Rei. She pointed to the tree on the horizon. The impossibly big tree. Some of the buildings around it had been put back together. The tree dwarfed them. That tree…it hadn't been there before. But it was there now and Mob was somewhere under it.

"The tree? She's buried under the tree?" asked Ritsu. That was where the explosion had been…where his sister had been…and it stood to reason that she would still have been there. Of course. Or course she would have gotten caught up in that explosion. Of course she wouldn't have made her way back to them yet. Of course.

He had never been so happy in his life.

And it was all thanks to Rei. She really was a…a good person. A good person for him. She didn't deserve what he put her through…how could he have…he owed her one. No, he owed her two now. He owed her for saving his life and he owed her for…for this. Now he knew where Shigeko was…and that he wasn't responsible for her death….

He was so happy.

"Then that's where I'm going." said Teru. There was no question about it. He was going to go dig Shigeko out from under that tree with his bare hands. She was alive and she needed him and wherever she was he would go to her. He was happy. He had never in his life been this happy. She was alive. His girlfriend, his everything, was still alive.

She had almost died for him.

He had almost died for her.

And if that wasn't love then he didn't know what was. She loved him. She loved him and he loved her and…and he thought that he had known, before, what love was. Now he knew. Love was…was this. The fact that she had been so ready to lay down her life for him…nobody had ever been prepared to do that for him before. He didn't want her to die. He wanted her to live…and to live with him. He had been ready to fight for her, to die for her, without hesitation. Well there was nothing left to fight for and they had both lived…and they would live for a long time. Together.

He would never leave her.

And she would never leave him.

And they had forever. It was dizzying, the thought of forever, but he had it with her. She was not dead. She was alive and he was alive…and they were together. She had gone through so much but…but they had so long to get through all of it. The stuff that just happened the other day, the stuff with that Mogami spirit, all of it. They had all the time in the world to work through it. All of it. They were…the two of them were ok. There were ok and they were going to be ok and that…that was ok. Better than ok. Great. Happy.

He had never been this happy in his entire life.

Reigen had never felt this happy before.

He had been ready to throw up, he would have thrown up if there had been anything in his stomach to throw up, but now he was…he was happy. His own happiness. The collective happiness around him. He knew what they were so happy about, all of them. He had heard it. Mob was still alive.

Mob was still alive.

He didn't even think. He just acted. He saw the kid, that stupid fucking kid, running over to that tree that felt all kinds of wrong…and Mob's little brother was following him…and that was where Reigen was going, too. To Mob. She was all alone under there, under that tree, that tree of…of wrongness…

It felt like her but it didn't.

And he needed to get her out of there.

"When this is all over you're getting a promotion." Reigen knew that he had to say something to that kid, that invaluable kid, and that was the first thing that came to mind. She had kept them all alive. She had led them to safety. Now she had been the one to pull them out of the put of despair. This was a pretty awesome kid.

Mob knew how to choose her friends well.

"But I don't work for you!" said Rei. Reigen either didn't hear her or he didn't care, she would have believed either, as he ran with Teru and Ritsu towards the big tree. Rei wanted to follow them…but she also didn't. That tree…she didn't like that tree. She didn't want to be anywhere near that tree…

Something was…not right…about that tree.

Something was not right.

The sky felt cramped.

Limits. There was a limit there. An up and a down. She had been limitless before. There were limits now. She lost some freedom, there, because of the limit but the limit also made her feel safe. She was safe there. She was small and safe. The sky felt cramped. She felt cramped. Cramped and small. Limited.

She was back within the limits of her vessel.

She tried to move.

An expression of her own free will. Movement. Up and down. Left and right. Movement within the limits of the world, within the limits of her vessel. Her vessel had not broken. She was not broken. She was safe, now, though from what she did not know. She was back, now, though where she had been she did not know. She knew not if it was dark outside or light.

The sky was cramped.

"God, it's so cramped in here." She heard a voice. Far away and muffled. She was having trouble seeing. She was having trouble feeling. She was having trouble existing within the confines of her vessel. But she needed to. She needed to be this thing, this thing together with the other her. Was this the answer? But then what was even the question? Had she even asked one? She did not know.

"….split up…."

"….that way…"

"…careful…."

"…whatever…"

"…..sorry….."

"…..whatever…."

Voices, movements, and colors. So many colors. Custard yellow and deep gold and school uniform blue. Colors she knew. Voices she knew. She needed to get up. She needed to move. These were expressions of her will. These were expressions of her will that she did not have the freedom to carry out. Her vessel did not let her. Something was pushing down on her from all side.

She should have been afraid.

But she was not.

She wasn't afraid of anything anymore.

The colors move apart. She watched gold split off from custard yellow. She watched school uniform blue stay in one spot before going back the way it came. Then forward. Then back. Custard yellow grew closer. Deep gold grew farther away. Blue stayed where it was.

Movements were an expression of will.

Movements could only be done within limits. Vessels were limits. Vessels gave one the freedom to move. Vessel gave one the freedom from movement. When inside of a vessel one lost a degree of movement but gained a degree of freedom. This vessel felt odd. Wrong. Right. It was hard to be back…though Mob did not know where it was that she had been.

She had no idea where she even was.

All she knew was that the sky was cramped.

A limit.

So many limits.

She couldn't move. She couldn't speak. There were so many limits on her…had she always had this many limits on her…she tried to move again. She had not always been so limited. She had been able to…she had been able to do a great many things…but that part of her was not listening. Another limit. She was stuck…but she was safe. Freedom. Freedom from and freedom to.

Movement.

Custard yellow.

The sky was less cramped.

"Mob…Mob speak to me…come on…come on Mob…" said Reigen as he dug Mob out of the ground with his bare hands. He had barely been able to feel her. Their auras trying to bond. But they had been trying and he had been following that tiny tug, almost imperceptible, to this spot. Then he had started digging.

And found black hair.

And a pale hand.

And a very pale face…so peaceful…peaceful as death….

So he dug harder. He dug her out of the ground with his bare hands. He needed to get her out of there before she suffocated. She was alive. Rei had said that she was alive…even if she wasn't moving…but she felt warm. Her face. Her neck. The parts of her that he had dug out of the ground felt warm. That was good…right?

Right?

"Mob…just say something. Anything. Please. Please be ok…I just need you to be ok. Ok? I'm not…I'm not upset with you. I just want you to be ok…or even just alive. Yes, alive is good. Just….just please Mob…please…" Mob can hear him more clearly now. The sky is less cramped. She opens her eyes a little more. The sky becomes even less cramped. A limit lifted. She feels cold. Cold air touches her skin. A feeling. Another limit. No, a way to be in the world…to experience the world. With her vessel.

Her body.

Herself.

She was Mob.

"Mob…please….please just say something. Talk about…tell me about your mangas. You read anything interesting lately? Or about…that show you like about the cats and they're all friends? Or about the robot thing? Come on, explain to me about how they aren't robots at all. Come one Mob." Said Reigen as he kept on digging her out. He needed….he needed her to be ok….otherwise….no. He needed to stay calm. For her sake. So she didn't…didn't…

That explosion had been her.

And now she had hardly any aura to speak of…and he was getting no emotion off of her….

"What about your friends? I know that you haven't been to school or anything in a while but…I mean I know you hear from people…right? Tell me about your friend who let you stay over with her…uh…Tome? Yeah. The one who likes aliens…or maybe about your esper friends? They're good kids, you know, I've been hanging out with them…if that's what you want to call it…and they're good kids I think. You…you've got some great friends there, Mob." Said Reigen. Mob knew him, she knew him well. Master Reigen. She wanted….she wanted to….she wanted to be with him. She had been so worried…so very worried…and now…he was fine…

She willed her hand to move.

She reached up. A slow and shaky thing. She felt something crumble from her arm as she raised it…and some cold air…so much cold air…she felt her skin going to goose flesh. It was…it was like a cold sort of burn. She felt…she reached up and felt something soft under her fingers. She presses her hand down a little harder. Warmth. She felt warmth.

"Congratulations." Said Mob quietly. At least she thought that she had said something. She had felt her lips move. Barely.

"…Mob…?" asked Reigen. He felt her hand at the small of his back…and she was so cold…and weak. But she was alive and that was mattered. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He just stayed still, perfect still, as if any movement on his part would end this moment between the two of them.

She was alive.

He was so happy.

"Master?" asked Mob. She found her voice. She could speak. Another limit lost. Another freedom gained. Her voice…talking hurt. It hurt like…like she had never spoken before. He throat felt raw. Her voice was raspy. She wondered if he had ever heard her…

But he had.

And she was being embraced.

"Mob…Mob….oh my God….I thought that I'd lost you. I thought that you'd died. I thought…this isn't about what I thought. I think…this isn't about what I think. This is about you. This is about you and…and you're alive…and this is about you being alive. God Mob…oh my God…I thought I'd lost you…" said Reigen. He held her close. He pulled her close and now that he had her he was never letting her go again.

She was so small.

She was so fragile.

"I love you too." Said Mob. She was sitting up, now, well not really. She was slumped against him. Moving was hard. She was heavy. Her vessel, her body, was heavy. She was heavy. A limit. Another limit. She had limits again…and this wasn't bad. She was slumped against him and he was warm and he smelled good. A lot like himself. Not a bad smell, a little acrid, but not bad.

She smiled.

She raised her arms up as best as she could and put them over his shoulders.

And then he got very tense.

"Mob...you're…you're not…Mob, let go." Said Reigen. There was no way that he could say it. She was naked. Very naked. He had been so focused on making sure that she hadn't died that he hadn't noticed, or thought to notice, that she wasn't wearing anything. Not even that bloody wedding dress that she had been wearing….

He pulled his hands back.

Not ok. Not at all ok. Mob was…she was out of it…and he was not going to hug her while she was naked. That wasn't ok. He loved her, he was happy that she was alive, but he was not…this was not the same as when he pushed her away on that night when they came back from the Asagiri job…and Mob might not have seen the difference….but that was a line that he was not going to cross. She was alive, and so was he, and he wanted to stay alive. Her boyfriend and her brother were looking for her…and they, or at least her little brother, would not have wanted to see her in that state of affairs…or for Reigen to see her in that state of affairs…

He did not want to see her in that state of affairs.

But she was not moving. He didn't think that she could. Her aura was dim, down to almost nothing, but he could still get a feeling of heaviness from her. She was so out of it…which was probably that only reason why she had not died of embarrassment on the spot.

"Master…" said Mob. She felt cold, so cold, and so alone. He hadn't holding her anymore. Pain. Another limit. Pain told her when she had hurt herself….but she hadn't hurt herself…he had hurt her…and she wanted to be with him so badly…and she was so cold….

His hand on her shoulder.

Something draped around her.

"Mob, try to sit up on your own, ok? Just…it's so hard to get you dressed without looking…not that I have any plans of looking…because then I would have to gouge out my own eyes with a rusty spoon. Just…come on, work with me here." Said Reigen as he tried to get Mob's arms through the sleeves of his suit coat. It was torn in places, frayed in others, and totally filthy but Mob was naked and he didn't have anything else that she could wear. She was naked and it was cold enough for him to see his breath. The sun had just risen and hadn't warmed anything yet. It was so cold….so very cold…

It was hard to do this with his eyes closed.

But he got her dressed.

"Master…where am I?" asked Mob. Her thoughts were coming in clearer, now. She needed to know where she was. That was important. That was very important. She needed…she needed to be grounded. Grounded and…and there. She was…she was cold and heavy…but Master Reigen was there and…and everything was going to be ok now that Master Reigen was there.

Custard yellow.

Pink and blue.

Together again.

"Mob, you're not going to believe me when I tell you. Seriously, it's just….you'll have to see it to believe it. You…I thought you were a goner, Mob, I really did. Scared the crap out of me to be honest. Scared the crap out of all of us to be honest. Man, everyone's going to be so happy to see you. You're the man of the hour! Or, woman I guess. Girl. You're the girl of the hour. Seriously, we are getting to much ramen on the way home. There's got to be some place that's still opened. You and me…and everyone else. Yeah, let's celebrate! We'll go all out!" said Reigen. He lost control of his mouth, again, but not in any serious way. He wanted to tell Mob over and over and over again that he was just so glad that she was alive. That she was there and she was alive and that this whole thing was over and they could just get back to their lives like normal…or as normal as possible…because even before all of this had happened things hadn't been normal….but that was ok. That was ok because he could help her through whatever she needed help with.

"I'm…I'm still alive." Said Mob. She was still alive. She had…she had been without her vessel, her body, any limits. She had returned to nothing. She had gone back to the void. It had happened. She had…she had died…maybe. If you counted losing your body as dying. But she had her body and she was alive and this…this was ok. She was ok.

Cold but ok.

"Yes….Mob, you're still alive." Said Reigen. His voice broke at the end. He wanted to pull her close, again, but he couldn't. She was in his suit coat but he still felt like he was crossing some sort of boundary. She was naked, still, and he was not going to…she was…this was complicated. He would offer her whatever comfort she needed….later. When she put some actual clothes on and he collected himself.

But he really did want to hold her.

But he didn't even get the chance to. Something pulled him back. Hard. He ended up sprawled out on his back. He could see the sky, sort of, through the knotted roots to this tree. It looked cramped.

Someone stepped over him.

"Shigeko! Shigeko….you're alive! You're here! You….Ich liebe dich so sehr. Ich bin so froh, dass du am Leben bist. Du bist mein Ein und Alles. Bitte verlass mich nie-" said Teru. He forgot Japanese at some point. She was…she was alive and she was with him and he was so happy that she was there. She was his and he was hers and they were never going to be apart again.

"Hi Teru…." Said Mob. That was the only thing that she could say. The rest of her thoughts kept on getting tangled in her mind. She wanted to tell him that she only spoke Japanese and some English. She wanted to tell him that she was happy to see him again. She wanted to tell him to hold her and kiss her and never let her go.

He takes her hand.

And he kisses it a bunch.

And it feels good.

She leaned forward and pressed herself against him. She wanted to feel him, to feel warm, and to be with him. To be as close to him as she could be. She was so cold…and she wanted to be warm…and she loved him so much…

He kissed her.

And it felt good.

And he kissed her again.

"Never go. Never, ever, go. I will never leave you and you will….please don't ever leave me. Please…please be with me forever. Shigeko willst du mich heiraten? Please, please, please be with me forever, please….please. I love you. I love you so much. Shigeko…I will love you until the day I die just…just please don't…I love you so much please….please ma-please don't go." Said Teru. Her aura was almost out. Dull. But she was still alive. She was alive and she was….she was his and he was hers and he didn't care if she was in Reigen's suit coat and that they were outside in the cold under this weird feeling tree…and he didn't give a damn that Reigen was back there clearing his throat either!

"Yeah I'm just going to…yeah…" said Reigen. Well that was not for him to see. That was not something that he even wanted to see. That was private. He knew that as the only adult there he had a God given duty to break apart amorous teenagers…but Mob had earned this. She saved the entire world, she could make out with her boyfriend for as long as she wanted to.

Also he didn't much want to be around Mob when she was in that state.

Plus he had to…to find her brother! Yeah, he could have gotten lost in these roots. There wasn't a lot of light getting in even though the sun was fully up. The kid could have gotten lost or something. Yeah, Reigen had a good reason for leaving Mob to…that.

Maybe the kid really was lost.

Because Reigen was getting a feeling of…despair. He walked towards it even though he was so sick of that emotion. When all of this was over he was putting on Mob's cheerful music playlist and getting as drunk as humanly possible…or something. Anything to chase away the feelings of despair that he had been feeling almost nonstop since all of this shit started up.

He heard crying.

Mob's little brother crying over…thank fucking God. Mob's clothes. Well not her clothes, her actual clothes had gotten ruined at some point in the fight, but that wedding dress and the white shoes she had been wearing. Oh, her bag too.

"Sister…" said Ritsu. Rei had been wrong. She had been wrong and now Shigeko…she was dead. That feeling that she was around, that was just her aura or her spirit or whatever, hanging out after she had died. That explosion had been her. That had been her and she had exploded and now she was gone and-

Someone tapped him on the shoulder.

"She's alive! Before you kill me she's alive." Said Reigen holding his hands up in surrender. Ritsu was giving him a long look.

"My sister…she's still alive?" asked Ritsu. He was…he was relieved that she was alive but…but Reigen had found her…but her clothes were right there…

"Teru found her too, if you don't believe me. Come on, she's back this way." Said Reigen. Ritsu was still staring at him. What? Did he think that Reigen was lying? Well that would have made sense, this kid had always been able to see through him like a cheap shower curtain, but he was telling the truth now. For once in his life.

"Where?" asked Ritsu. He got up and picked up his sister's clothes. She needed clothes. It was cold out…and he wanted to kill Reigen…he wanted to kill Reigen because if he had found sister…she was alive and that was what he had to focus on. She was alive. Everyone was alive, this was all over, and everthing was ok now.

"This way…but give Mob and Teru a minute to…uh…say hello." Said Reigen rubbing the back of his head. Ritsu didn't listen to him. He just ran off in the direction that Reigen had pointed him in. Reigen followed at a distance.

So…

So this was it. This was the end of all of it. The worry, the stress, it was all over. Everyone was alive and well. That was as best, no, it was better than could have been expected. He hadn't been exaggerating, he had in fact thought that Mob had been a goner…but she was alive.

"Sorry!"

And well. Which was more than could probably be said for her little brother. The poor kid had just been traumatized, probably. Yeah. Nobody wanted to watch their big sister making out with her boyfriend. Not that Reigen had any big sisters, or little sisters, to have caught making out with anyone. Well he had that little brother he never saw…he hoped that the kid was ok.

He hoped that everyone was ok.

His mother, his father, his half-brother, the few living grandparents he still had, the cousins he never saw, the family across the water that he hadn't seen since he had been a child, all of them. He hoped that they were all ok.

He really did.

"If you think that this is ok then you've got another thing coming!" shouted Sophia from her car window at the miserable bastard who was wasting her valuable tax money standing by the side of the road with a very unhelpful sign.

All traffic into Seasoning City was closed until further notice.

What a load of crap! Her tax dollars paid for this road and her son was in Seasoning City and this was a free country and she could drive wherever she wanted! This road was not closed! If this rod was closed then…then she was out of options. She had been trying to come in from all directions but it was…futile. They were all closed. Only the army, no it wasn't the army here, the ground self-defense force was allowed to enter the city. Anyone could leave it though….but if she drove on the wrong side of the road she'd probably end up in some kind of grisly auto collision and dead, or deported, and then she would be no use to Taka at all.

She made a U turn and pulled into a roadside stop.

She double parked. She knew full well that it was rude but she was well beyond the point of caring about manners. Manners, manners, manners…this country had too many goddamned manners. She couldn't read lips but she knew what those soldiers, or whatever they were called her, talking about. The crazy foreign woman that had been about to run them down. What did she need to get into the city for? She wasn't Japanese, who could she have been looking for? Crazy foreigners. Cray Americans. Crazy old woman.

She was not old.

But she had been acting a little crazy. She'd gone a while without sleep. Work had at least let her go because of the state of emergency. Her phone vibrated again. Probably more work friends asking about her son. Her son and his little sister.

Some said sister.

Some said girlfriend.

One person said female companion. The entire message had been written out in hiranga. Baby expats. If you couldn't speak, read, and write the language then you had no business in the country! Honestly, how hard was it to memorize the meaning and stroke order of a few thousand characters?! She banged her head against the steering wheel and let it rest.

If Taka and Mobbu made it out of this alright then she promised that she would never bitch and moan about work again.

She checked her phone. It might have been Taka or Mobbu. Neither of them had been picking up their phones…but the radio said that there were problems with the internet and cellular network in Seasoning City because of all the destruction. Landlines were down too but landlines were for old people. She had tried the one at Taka's office, though, just to be safe.

No answer.

She closed her eyes and just listened to the racket the car made. It had been Taka who named the car. He had named it back when he as three, about. Back when he had been so small that she could have picked him up and carried him. He had named the car without fanfare, no, he had just asked if they could get in Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang and drive down to the big playground. He had always been so creative, Taka, and so clever. He had certainly been create in some of the thing he did for that business of his…and if he and Mobbu lived through whatever it was that was happening in Seasoning City then she promised that she would never criticize his choice of profession again.

"Bang Bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Our fine four fendered friend. Bang Bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Our fine four fendered friend." Sang Sophia so softly she could barely even make out her own voice over the racket of the car. She didn't know why she had to be quiet. There was no three year old Taka to sing along with her, no thirteen year old Taka to tell her that she was embarrassing him, and no twenty three year old Taka to tell her that he was quitting his job and possibly ruining his life…

She wondered what thirty three year old Taka would have been like.

Was going to be like. Her son…her son was not dead. Arataka was not dead. He was alive. He had to be. He was alive and any minute now he was going to call her back and tell her off for blowing up his inbox like she had been. Any minute now. Arataka…Taka…Taka-chan was not dead. Neither was Mobbu. They were…they were fine…

Last night a picture of a mushroom cloud appeared on her news feed.

It was white but in the shape of a mushroom, maybe, she didn't know. She wasn't a physicist. People on the internet were calling it a mushroom cloud. They were saying that some kind of bomb had been set off. They were saying that it had been powerful enough to knock satellites out of orbit. That it had caused tremors so strong that people on the other end of the country had felt them.

Sophia needed a cigarette.

She turned the car off but stayed double parked. She wasn't going to be long, just to the cigarette vending machine out in the front. Besides, this was Japan. The worst she would end up catching were some angry glares. It wasn't like anyone was going to fight her in the parking lot because she was double parked. It wasn't like there was anywhere to go, either.

There was no way into Seasoning City after all.

"What are you doing telling me there's no way into the city?! Talk to the man again and explain that our son, our children, are all alone in the city!" said Hana loudly from her spot at the rest stop picnic table. She had a lukewarm cup of weak coffee in front of her and a dry vending machine donut. They had been driving all night, sleeping in shifts, trying to find a way into the city. The roads were terrible but those morons from the self-defense force were even worse. Hana would have glad sat in another bumper to bumper traffic jam if it meant getting to her son…her son and daughter.

"Hana…please. They said that they're not allowed to let us in. Come on, we'll try another road-" said Ichimaro as he put a hand on his wife's shoulder. She shrugged him off and glared in the way that only she could glare.

"There are no other roads!" hissed Hana. People were around and she did not need to add embarrassed to the ghastly mix of emotions swirling around inside of her. They seemed to have been engrossed in their own business, staring down at the phones, huddled around car radios, and talking amongst themselves but Hana knew that at any moment they would notice her and start talking about the crazy woman making a scene in public. She was not her daughter, she cared what people thought of her.

"Hana…we need to think. I've called the house and there's no answer. None from the neighbors, either, back when I could get through. Nobody's picking up their cell phones and the operator said that the landlines in Seasoning City are down. All of them. Hana…we're not getting in." said Ichimaro

"Don't….don't say that. The road is literally right there. We could just drive past the man with the sign and-" said Hana

"Get shot? Get arrested? What use are we to the children then?" said Ichimaro

"What use are we to them right now?" asked Hana

"Right now at least we aren't in prison for running through a military blockade! I…I'm sorry to have raised my voice to you then, Hana, but you are being completely ridiculous." Said Ichimaro

"Oh? So I'm ridiculous for being worried about my son? The son that we left home alone during a TERRORIST ATTACK?! The one who's probably scared out of his mind right now?! The one who's only thirteen years old-" said Hana. Ritsu was just a baby. He needed his mother. He probably didn't even understand what was happened. The violence was, as the media had said, contained to the downtown area…they weren't very far from downtown. Not very far at all. Her office was there…her husband's office was there…the place where she bought the children's clothes…the place where she sometimes got pastry…they said that downtown was hit by some sort of bomb…and that it was gone. She had seen the pictures on her phone. It was like…like the ones from the pacific war she had seen in her school books…back when she had been Ritsu's age….her poor little baby boy….

"Two! We have two children, Hana, and I bet that Shigeko is just as terrified as Ritsu is. I bet that they…they've found each other and they're somewhere safe and…and we have two kids! No wonder Shigeko won't come home with the way you blatantly favor Ritsu like this! The world is going to shit and you're still putting him first!" said Ichimaro. He knew that this was not the place to have it out with his wife. He couldn't help it. The first numbers had come out of Seasoning City. The missing. They weren't going near ground zero…and there was a ground zero…until some government scientists said that it was safe.

There were a lot of missing people for that list.

And their two children could have been on.

"I know! I gave birth to them! I was the one who fed them and changed them and nursed them! I am their mother and you…you are not going to sit there and lecture me about our daughter! I didn't hear you calling after as she left! I didn't see you running down the street chasing after her. She left of her own accord and I-I-I- need a cigarette. I am not talking about this to you, with you, in the middle of a roadside stop." Said Hana jumping to her feet and making a beeline for the cigarette machine. She waved her hand to brush a cloud of smoke out of her face. She wasn't the only person who needed a cigarette that morning.

"It's out of everything but cheap cigars and Peace Lights." Said Sophia as a harried looking woman walked up to the cigarette machine like it had spat in her mother's ashes and then danced a jaunty jig in them for good measure. She had been shouting at that man, presumably her husband, for the whole carpark to hear. Sophia didn't blame her. Yoshio would have gotten an earful, too, had he been there.

"You're smoking 520s." said Hana eying the box in the foreign woman's hand. The woman shrugged.

"I got the last box…but you can bum one off me if you want. You seem like you need one." said Sophia. That was what you were supposed to do in these times of crisis, right? Have a moment of kindness and connection with a total stranger?

"Thank you. I can pay you back-" said Hana

"For a single cigarette? Please, I'm not so hard up. Besides, it's one less for me to smoke." Said Sophia

"It's a terrible habit." Said Hana with a frown. She was setting such a terrible example for Ritsu…for the children. She was setting a terrible example for the children…though the man Shigeko lived with smoked like a chimney from what Hana had been able to gather. She hoped that Shigeko hadn't started smoking. That was just what she needed. Not only was her fourteen year old daughter skipping weeks and weeks of school but she was smoking now, as well.

"Yeah, it is…but it's too late to stop now." Said Sophia with a smile devoid of all mirth. Not that the woman noticed, she was busy digging around in her handbag. Her wedding ring caught the light of the rising sun. Gold, probably a lot nicer than Sophia's. She felt for the band. Oh. She had forgotten to put it back on after she'd prepared dinner. Heh. Maybe it was a sign of….something.

"I'm sorry but may I trouble you for a light as well? I seem to have misplaced my matchbook." Said Hana as she searched through her bag. She didn't usually smoke but she did carry a matchbook so she could be polite to her workmates. She had probably left it at the hotel when her bag tipped over. She should have been more careful as she left…and she should not have been in such a hurry, either, not with the way that the traffic had been.

"Yeah, sure thing." Said Sophia as she pulled out her lighter and lit the end of the woman's cigarette for her. The woman read the side of her lighter, it seemed like, though Sophia didn't know what was so interesting.

"Lower Back Pain City?" read Hana. Wow. Well then there must not have been any hope. She knew where Lower Back Pain City was in relation to Seasoning City…it was not anywhere near here. If that route was blocked off too…then there really was no hope at all….

"Yeah, that's where just I came from….God, this traffic…uh, what about you? Where are you headed in from?" asked Sophia. She fully expected that the next question the woman asked her would be 'but where are you really from?' or something along those lines.

"I…I'm from Seasoning City. I was up in the mountains but…but I'm from Seasoning City." Said Hana. Her hands shook, she almost dropped her cigarette. Her baby…her baby was there in the city and Hana was out here and she had no idea what she was going to do when she actually got into the city…but she had to be there for her son.

"Damn….I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Said Sophia because, well, what else was socially acceptable to say? Everyone was freaking out and it wasn't like this woman was special….hell, she had two people trapped in the city and she wasn't freaking out.

"My son is in there…" said Hana. She knew that she should not have been spilling her guts like that to a complete stranger but once she started she couldn't stop. It didn't matter, this woman was so obviously foreign, who knew how much she even understood.

"Me too." Said Sophia. She had too much of her own shit to deal with. She did not have the mental space right then and there to deal with other people's shit. She had a son too…and it was easier to get mad than to let herself feel sad. Feelings sad was…it was draining. Worry. Anxiety. Very draining emotions. Anger was the get shit done emotion. It was easier, better, to be mad at Taka. Mad at him for staying in the city even though he had no reason to at this point….and that poor little girl was not a reason…and thinking about that made her madder…and the madder she got the easier it was to stop worrying…and she had been worrying for so long…

She bit down a little too hard on the end of her cigarette.

"How old is your child?" asked Hana. She had opinions on foreign people having children in Japan…but now was not the time to voice them. She felt for this woman, she did. It was hard having a son so far away, so young, and in so much danger…and she could not protect him. She could have lost Ritsu…and she…without Ritsu she wouldn't have any more children at all. She'd have no children. No son, no daughter, just the house. The big empty house…and she hoped that she even still had that. She didn't care if her home was a smoking pile of rubble so long as her son was safe.

"He's twenty nine. Yours?" asked Sophia. Twenty nine years old and he still could not listen to his mother even though she knew what was best for him. She had been telling him and telling him and telling him to come back home…and he hadn't listened….and now look at where he was. Not that Sophia knew that this was coming. She didn't. She had no idea that this was even something that could have happened.

"Thirteen." Said Hana with a shake of her head. Thirteen was, she decided, the worst age. Ritsu used to be such a good boy. Now he had a girlfriend and was making terrible decision after terrible decision…and hopefully he hadn't made any terrible ones in her absence…or hopefully he had. Hopefully she came through her front door and her son was there, safe and sound, and had just spent the weekend making out with his fast little girlfriend.

"Ah, I do not envy you. A teenager…I shudder to think." Said Sophia. Taka as a teenager…pretty much the same as Taka as a grown man aside from the fact that he had not been beyond her command back then…or maybe he had been. He hadn't been too keen on listening to her back then, either, no more keen on it than listening to her now. Teenagers. Adults.

"Yeah…I have no idea what's going on in that head of his half the time." Said Hana with a bitter sort of laugh. What had happened to her little boy? He used to always listen to her, he used to never even need to be told to do the right thing, but now he was thirteen and he thought that he knew everything and knew what was best…just like his sister….

"Teenagers….I wish I could tell you that they grow out of it but I can't. Boys…am I right?" said Sophia. She laughed, then, a bitter sort of sound. She wished that her son was still thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…small enough that she could have dragged him out of the city by the back of his gakuran. But he was a grown man…but she could still drag him back him by his suit collar. She would ask Mobbu if she wanted to come with, of course, because Mobbu was not her child. She wondered what the legality of moving someone else's child to a whole other city was. Well said child had most likely been abandoned at this point…she'd worry about the legality of it all later.

"And girls, too." Said Hana. She would have said more, she felt like saying more, but she didn't. Because she was not Shigeko. Because she cared about that fact that she had broken so many social rules already. Also because her husband was on the phone with someone…and he was motioning for her to come over…and it could have been Ritsu….

Hana excused herself and rushed over to her husband.

Sophia watched her drop a half smoked cigarette on the ground.

Well at least she had some good news. Sophia hoped that it was about her kid. It was hard enough having a grown, adult, son in the middle of that danger….having a child in the middle of all of that was just…incomprehensible. She knew that Mobbu was only fourteen, she knew full well how young that girl was, but she also had this feeling in the back of her mind that Mobbu would be able to keep herself and Taka at least somewhat safe. She wasn't invincible, far from it, but she could still do so much more than the average person…but so could those terrorists if their little message to the world to be believed…but Taka had said that Mobbu had fought these people before…and that she had won. That she was very strong for a psychic. For an esper. ESP. Extra sensory perception. Extra. More than most people could do.

Maybe enough to keep her and Arataka safe.

"I can keep her safe. I've got this." said Teru as he picked Shigeko up and tried to carry her bridal style. She was still kind of….tired? Exhausted. She kept on fading in and out…and he could understand why. She had grown this tree after all.

"….cold…" said Mob as she felt herself being lifted into the air. She rested her head against something warm…Teru. That was Teru. He was so warm and soft and he smelled so good…she buried her face into his chest. He felt so good. He smelled so good. Even his aura felt so good. It was like she was feeling him for the first time, body and aura, and it was so amazing….

"At least put this back on her." said Reigen as he tried to drape his suit coat back over Mob. She was back in the wedding dress…the one that she had saved them all in. It wasn't bloody anymore but it was burnt and torn…and didn't really seem to fit her. The straps kept sliding down her shoulders and the front was hanging down way too low…and Reigen made it a point to look away from her. Like her little brother was.

"She's fine." Said Teru. He glared at Reigen as hard as he could. Shigeko was fine. He'd get her home…well no it had exploded…but he'd get her back to the Awakening Lab and he'd put her in some of the clothes he had brought….the only clothes he had left in the entire world…and then they'd go to one of the extra rooms and just be warm and sleep and just…just be together. With her…and sleep. He was tired. She was exhausted….and he was pretty damn tired.

"Teru…it's cold out here. Sister even said that she was cold." Said Ritsu. He didn't much want to think about the fact that his sister had been wearing Reigen's suit coat…that he had been the one to find sister….

"….fine…" said Teru. He snatched Reigen's suit coat out of his hands and draped it over Shigeko like a blanket. He held her in his arms with his own strength, though, which was not as easy as it looked. She was not as light as she looked…but he would gladly carry her all the way to the ocean if that was what she wanted.

He would do anything for her.

She was doing that thing where she nuzzled into him like a cat, again, and he wanted nothing more than to just go somewhere warm and hold her and be held by her. He had come so close to losing her…but there she was. She was there and she was alive and that was what mattered.

"Come on, let's get out of here. I have no idea how stable any of this is." Said Reigen. The wind was whistling through the spaces between the roots. He was freezing. Those kids must have been freezing too. Those poor kids…it was over. It was all over and now they could all go home…those of them who still had homes…

These poor kids.

"And then what? My house burnt down." Said Ritsu. He had nowhere to go after this…nowhere. It was…he had never had nowhere to go. Was this…was this how Shigeko felt when she was living outside? At her friend's houses? When she had run away from home for the first time? He didn't know and he was not about to ask her. Not now. Not today.

"Mine too. Well it exploded….but let's just go back to the Awakening Lab. We'll figure it out after we eat and sleep and-" said Teru. He had nowhere to go…but he had his debit card and checkbook and he could find somewhere to stay. That is if there was even anywhere else to go in the city…so much had been destroyed….he wondered if parents knew what happened. He wondered if they even cared.

"…hungry…" said Mob. She wanted…she wanted milk. She had been afraid…but she wasn't anymore. She wanted milk and nobody was going to ruin milk for her. She wanted milk and takoyaki and ramen and curry and eggs with rice and…and food. She needed food. She was hungrier then than she had ever been in her entire life.

"Yeah…don't worry. I'll get you something to eat. Whatever you want." Said Teru. He repositioned her and started to walk. Ritsu and Reigen followed. The Awakening Lab…he wanted to go home more than anything but he had no other place to go…and all he wanted to do was to be alone with her. Away from everyone else. He just…he wanted this whole thing to be over. He was tired of being there for people, of being the one who knew just what to do, the one who told them what to do…he just wanted to be alone with his girlfriend and just…just rest.

"You can both stay with us…me…if you want. It'll be a tight fit but we'll-" said Reigen. He needed to at least extend the invitation. Both of these kids were homeless. They had literally nowhere else to go. They couldn't live at the Awakening Lab….or maybe they could. He didn't know. He didn't know the guy who ran it, only that he let the kids in his charge jump head first into danger…so not that different from Reigen then…heh…..

"I'm fine. He's fine. We're fine." Said Teru picking up his pace. The last thing that he wanted was to stay with Reigen. He had this. He'd stay at the Awakening Lab until he figured something out. Ritsu…he'd figure something out, too. Hell, Ritsu could stay with him when he found someplace to stay.

And so could Shigeko.

"Alright, alright. Just a suggestion." Said Reigen as he raised his hands up in surrender. No use arguing with teenage boys. He used to be a teenage boy, he knew how stubborn they could be, and he was done fighting and arguing. Not his kids, not his life, not his responsibility…even though they kind of were. Even though the two of them seemed to have no parents to speak of. Ritsu and Mob's parents had fucked off to some spa in the mountains and Teru's parents had fucked off to a whole other continent. He wondered about the others. What about their parents? Did they care that their kids had been away for days and days? That they had all almost died more times than Reigen could count?

He didn't know.

Right now he was just going to worry about Mob. She had been explicitly made his responsibility…and he had been taking pretty piss poor care of her lately. Poor kid. She seemed fine now, kind of out of it, but he had no idea how she would be when the dust settled. What she would think of herself. She hated fighting, hated violence, but she had fought and…and she had won. He had no idea what the true cost of her victory had been. To herself. To the way that she saw herself. None of them had seen any sign of that Suzuki guy. Not even body parts…and Reigen wouldn't have minded if they did…well he would have minded because of the psychological damage finding pieces of a dead guy would do to the kids…and also Mob. If she had killed that guy…if he were dead….

Poor Mob.

And poor that Suzuki guy's son. The kid's father may have been a piece of shit but he was still that kid's father. That poor kid….Reigen could see his aura. A few auras. He saw the auras before he heard the voices. Loud ones.

"…so look again!"

"….keep looking!"

"….she said he was here!"

Ritsu took off running. Reigen didn't stop him. Reigen could not only hear that red haired kid's voice but also the voice of Ritsu's girlfriend. Soft and quiet but there…and Reigen was not going to stand in the way of true, middle school, love. He looked away from Mob and Teru. Yeah. No point in standing in the way of middle school love.

"Teru….walk that way." said Mob. She pointed in the direction of…of where he was. She could feel herself being drawn to him like a magnet. She wondered if he had found what he was looking for. She wondered if he knew what the answer was.

She had to congratulate him.

"Huh? This way?" asked Teru. He was about to regroup with the others and see what the hell was going on. They weren't looking for Shigeko, from what he could hear, and he needed to tell his people at least not to look for that other guy. The one who had the nerve to think that he could just…just try and hurt Shigeko like that. No. If Teru found him then he would have no choice but to kill him. No choice at all.

"Yes. This way." said Mob. She heard Master Reigen telling them to join the others. Mob wouldn't. She needed to go that way. She needed to. Teru was walking too slowly so she asked to be put down. He wouldn't so she just leaned herself forward until he almost dropped her.

"Shigeko, wait!" said Teru. She wasn't going to let herself be carried. She had rolled out of his arms and now she was stumbling around in the dirt in her shoes…shoes that she was having trouble walking in. She stumbled but did not stop. He followed her. Reigen followed behind them.

"This way." said Rei. Teru heard her voice carrying down to him. He heard footsteps, a lot of them. Now more people were following Shigeko. She didn't even seem to notice. She didn't even seem to care. She had somewhere to be and the only thing that they could do was follow.

So not that different from life, really.

"I'm pretty sure it's this way." said Rei. She was not seeing with one hundred percent certainty now. She was seeing pathways. She had a vague idea of where she needed to go…and every sign was saying to follow Mob. She hadn't wanted to go to into the tree but Sho said that the best place to look for his dad was where Mob was…and Rei wanted to help…and everyone wanted something to do….so that was how they all ended up in the evil tree. That was how they all ended up here, following Mob, through this evil feeling tree.

Probably because it had a bad guy in it.

"That's good enough for me!" said Sho. This was why you had friends, to help you find your dad…or his body…after the climactic final battle ended. Dad was probably fine. Ritsu's big sis was not the type of person to just kill someone. She was a good person like that. Dad was probably just maimed or seriously hurt. That was it. Dad was just super hurt somewhere in this really weird feeling tree that looked like a piece of broccoli a little bit….

Dad was fine and broccoli was disgusting.

"What are we even going to do with this guy when we find him?" asked Reigen. His question was met with shrugs. Nobody knew what they would do. They all just said noncommittal things…and that worried Reigen. If they found this guy and he decided that the fight was over….even if he was as depowered as Mob was right then he still had the brute force advantage. As amazing as Mob was she was still as strong, physically, as a teenage girl could be expected to be.

This was bad.

This was so bad.

But he had no clue what he was supposed to do but follow everyone.

Mob knew that she was being followed but she didn't care. She was following something herself. A tug at something deep inside of her. A tug that got harder and harder the closer she got to…to whatever it was. She wondered if he'd found his way out of the void, out of nothing, the nothing that she had returned them to. She wondered if he had found his way back.

She wondered if he had found what he was looking for.

She wondered if she had found what she was looking for, too.

Her feet hurt. Walking in these shoes on this ground was hard. She was cold. Even with Master Reigen's suit coat on she was still cold. She wanted…she wanted…she had no idea what she wanted to do. Eat. Sleep. Kiss Teru again. She wanted a few things but right now she needed to do this thing…this one thing…

Her feet carried her through the roots and outside.

Where he was.

"Congratulations." Was all that Mob could say. That felt like that right word to use even though she didn't…or maybe she did. Maybe she knew what she was congratulating him for.

"Congratulations." Said Suzuki. He had felt something going towards him…and he had felt something pulling him towards that something. That something turned out to be her. He had no other words to say to her. Nothing else could encompass the sheer amount of…of he didn't have the first clue what….gratitude? Understanding? He didn't know. He just did not know. He just knew that congratulations was the right word to use in this situation so he used it. He had no other words.

But others had words for him.

"Dad?! What the fuck!? How can you just-just-just embarrass me like this!?" shouted Sho. Embarrassment was the most overwhelming feeling. He was mad at dad for all the shit he pulled, happy that dad was still alive, sad that dad had become this…and also worried about his own future because with dad gone and Claw finished…he had nothing…

But he chose to focus on his most immediate problem.

"That's a side of Suzuki that I never wanted to see…." Said Koyama before Sakurai covered his eyes. He took off his own glasses, too, because that was…more of the President then he had ever wanted to see in his entire life. That gesture seemed to break everyone out of the shock of, well, that. Seeing that.

"What's going on? What can't I look at?" asked Mukai as Tsuchiya covered her eyes. Well now this just made her more curious as to what was going on. She could feel the President's aura…he was still alive….but maybe he had broken into a bunch of little pieces and there was blood and guts everywhere!

"For the love of God…." Muttered Tsuchiya. She made a point of not looking. Well then…it was good to end on a point of levity? Maybe? She didn't know. All she knew was that she agreed with Koyama, that was a side of Suzuki that she had never wanted to see.

"Rei, don't look." Said Ritsu as he covered his girlfriend's eyes. He couldn't help but stare. That was…that was…that was like looking at a train wreck. He couldn't help but gawk. That guy had seemed so imposing, so terrifying, but now he was just….stark naked outside like it was nothing.

"Ritsu…stop looking! Everyone, stop looking! I mean it!" said Sho as he covered Ritsu's eyes. No. Nope. This was not ok. This was not at all socially acceptable…and he was gaining a new appreciation for what was and was not socially acceptable.

"Mob! Close your eyes!" said Reigen. He ran up to cover Mob's eyes but her boyfriend beat him to it. He knew that Mob was fourteen, in a weirdly committed relationship, and what she got up to in said relationship….but he was not just going to let her stare at this guy….he could at least protect her from that.

"Yeah….that's not right." Said Teru. Served him right. Beaten, stripped, though Shigeko hadn't shaved his head…and at some point he'd have to ask Shigeko why she stripper her enemies after she beat them. He couldn't imagine Shigeko, his sweet and caring Shigeko, stripped people for the humiliation factor…or out of some weird desire to…he was going to stop thinking about this now. In fact he was going to look away from the naked guy in front of him. That was the thing to do.

"What did I just say!? Quit looking at my dad's dick!" asked/screamed Sho. This was the worst day of his life…and it had barely even started. This should have been the best day of his life. He was alive. Everyone was alive. Claw was finished. Yes, he should have been celebrating his victory but no, of course he couldn't. The universe couldn't cut him any slack now could it? No, as a final kick to the balls his dad decided that the best thing to do would be to go swinging his dick around…this time literally.

"P-President! What are you doing? There are girls here!" said Serizawa. He rushed up and dressed the President in his robe quickly. Regardless of how he felt about the man, and he wasn't even sure how he felt about the President, he could not just walk around naked when there were girls around! Or ever now that Serizawa thought about it. He dressed the President as quickly as he could. This was…there was a pseudo intimacy to it that Serizawa would unpack later. He had a lot to unpack later…or never. He'd think about what happened, his part in it, and what he did later. Right now the President was naked. That had a quick and easy solution.

And now that the President wasn't naked anymore Serizawa wasn't quite sure what to do with himself.

He had betrayed the President, betrayed Claw, and let Sho get beaten almost to death…he had no place at the President's side anymore. No, his place was at…at her side? The girl's. Mob's. Shigeko's. Miss Kageyama's….yes, that feels better. Miss Kageyama. More respectful. He knows her but he also doesn't know her. So then his place was at Miss Kageyama's side…

Or not.

Because he didn't really know her that well and he had no idea if she needed him…or if he needed her. If he just needed someone to tell him what to do. He knows that she won't give him any orders even though he needs some in that moment. She's not like that. Your life is your own. That's what she said. She's not the type to tell others what to do…and she was pretty preoccupied anyway, it seemed. She was still but her aura…it was moving.

And so was the President's.

And he didn't know what to make of it. It was like they were talking but without words. He could see it, the exchange of energy itself, passing back and forth between the two of them. He had never seen anything like this…and he had no idea if this was good or bad. If they had reached some sort of conclusion or if the fight was just getting started…again. He was tired of fighting. He was tired of running.

He was tired.

He joined Sho, went back to his side, because he had to find some way of making things ok between the two of them. He had no idea if that was even possible. He had turned a blind eye to so much over the years….and Sho had gotten so hurt…and Serizawa had always just let it happen. Of course Sho was angry with him. Of course Sho probably wanted nothing to do with him anymore. They were probably done….

His friend.

Probably not anymore.

He was selfish. He had been selfish all of these years, all the years he called Sho his friend but let him get hurt over and over again, and he was being selfish now. Everyone was watching the President and Miss Kageyama with baited breath. Were they going to fight or were they done? Everyone was worried about that, something of consequence, and he was worried about himself.

What was wrong with him?

He was thrown from his own internal struggle with a shift, subtle but there, in the energy around them. Whatever the President and Miss Kageyama had been doing it was done with now. Now both of their auras were back where they belonged….though he couldn't remember the President having that much yellow in his aura before…

"Was it worth it?" asked Mob. She couldn't see…something was covering her eyes…but she also could see. She could see all of the people around her…they were all alright. Everything was alright. She was alright. They had returned to nothing and then returned from that.

So, really, everything was fine.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" asked Suzuki. The world was black. The world was white. The world was him and her. She was the focal point to the world at that moment. He had no idea what had happened, where he had been, or where he was now. She was all that mattered. All that he could see was her. Her light. Her being.

Her.

"I don't know." Said Mob

"I don't know either." Said Suzuki.

Then they both collapsed.