It had been seven days, a full week that had passed since I had narrowly avoided meeting my end. I wished I could have been able to say that I didn't remember having any dreams during my stay at the Serenity Hospital, but that would have been a lie.

On the contrary, the nightmares I had been plagued with during my comatose state were agonizing, and played out as though they were the memories of a collective consciousness that, to me at least, seemed to go on for several lifetimes.

And with each life cycle I had to experience through different points of time, one thing remained consist above all else: every single person whose memories I was relieving all had the same black tendrils that my attempted murderer had.

Upon finally awakening from my coma, the entirety of the nightmares seemed more like a distant memory were still residing in my head, despite the fact that I wanted them to be behind me more than anything else.

While the memories themselves were too long to remember, they all generally played out usually the same; or at least that's how I could remember them being.

In between the cycles of having to experiencing the horrors of being the one to mercilessly slaughter faceless individuals over-and-over again, through those nightmares I was able to recall always returning to places that seemed like palaces and rather high-class domains; it was there where I would remain until being given more orders to head back out to further my spree of death.

Despite each murderous life cycle I had lived through the eyes of another, they would all end the same: dying young to a heroic figure, who slayed the person whose memories I was expiercing for myself.

While I could remember being able to feel my own emotions that differed from each life I was spectating, I was able to also feel what they were going through as well. Every lifetime that I saw pass before me were all filled with those who hated their own existence, and who not only craved the deaths of others, but their own death as well, for it seemed as though those periods in between being rebirth were the only times they truly felt at peace.

As to why every single person chose to live out such a wretched life each time was beyond me. If I had to make an assumption though, and we all know what they say about assumptions, then I would have to say that they chose to go through because that's all they knew.

It was… A lot for me to process when I finally woke up around what I was presuming to be midnight, or at least that I guessed the time to be. I don't remember how long I laid there in my hospital bed, just staring up at the ceiling and my surroundings with the injection needles connected to the IV bags above me getting pushed out of my arms by my own quirk. Eventually, a nurse happened upon me and was able to get the doctor to come in to evaluate me in no time.

There was quite a bit of paperwork I had to fill out; some of it was an analysis conducted on my psyche and body's response time, and the rest of it fell into the category of agreeing to not sue them before I could be discharged. I must have done well enough on the verbal and reactionary tests for them to deem me as mentally stable, because otherwise I don't see how any of them would have allowed me to leave the premises unless they were that desperate for beds.

Between the time I spent discharged from the hospital, to the time Mei finally found me laying out in the snow, within the burnt and discarded ruins of where the Magnolia Community stood, I believe thirty days at least had passed; none of which I had any memory of experiencing for myself.

After wiping my dirty clothes off the best she could from the mud and snow that coated practically every inch of me, Mei took off her oversized jacket and before draping it over me. Mei made sure to tie up the front so it would bundle around me before quietly leading me away from the part of my past that I had subconsciously returned to; the part of me that I couldn't let go.

Underneath the steady stream of cascading water that flowed down his matted raven-blue hair, Haise had his forehead pressed up against the tiled wall of Mei's shower. The feeling of being able to feel hot water washing away the grime away from his hair and skin felt good for Haise, but the therapeutic feeling brought on by the shower itself more importantly helped calm the anxiety that was still rampant in the young man's heart.

The hair products and body wash given to him smelt like cocoa butter; which was the same scent that Haise remembered the pink-hair inventor having. It was a small detail that he himself never knew he would remember, nor did he understand why he remembered that in the first place; the only conclusion that Haise came to was that his mind was still trying to piece together whatever memories of his own that he had left.

'… I suppose that means that it'll only be a matter of time before I'm back at that psych ward. I wonder if that indifferent piece of shit still works there,' Haise thought bitterly with a frown spreading across his pale lips. 'What a dick… Oh well, no point in overwhelming myself with the future right now… I should probably turn off the water now; I've been in here long enough, and I'd really hate to overstay my welcome here.'

Deciding to not waste another minute of hot water from the only friend he had left, Haise reluctantly shut the shower off and remained standing in the center of the stall; dripping with water from head-to-toe, as he took a minute to inhale the steam that hung heavy in the humid air.

'An entire month of just… Existing. An entire period of time, thirty days that have gone by… And there's not a single second of it that I can remember,' Haise thought to himself, while letting out a cynical chuckle out from his curled-up lips. '… I don't feel hungry, nor do I feel thirsty. I must have been taking care of myself somewhat during that period of homelessness; otherwise, I don't really see how I'd be alive any other way…'

'… Oh well, there's no point in thinking about it anymore. What's done is done,' Haise thought to himself in defeat; feeling too exhausted to bother himself with trying to make sense of everything that had happened. Letting out a sigh, Haise took a few more minutes to collect his thoughts before finally opening the glass door of the shower stall.

Grabbing the large towel that Mei had left in there for him sitting on top of the closed toilet lid, Haise made sure to dry his body first before stepping out of the shower stall. Drying off his raven-hair, Haise carefully stepped over the pile of dirty clothes that belonged to Mei, that were messily scattered across the bathroom floor, while making his way to the cluttered sink with the towel pressed up against his wet face.

'I don't think I've ever been to Mei's apartment before… I shouldn't be judging her, but… I never figured for her to be so messy,' Haise thought to himself with a twinge of guilt, as a sudden thought entered his head. '… I wonder if I'm the reason why she's like this? Perhaps, I… No, no, I shouldn't assume that I'm behind this; how self-centered of me to even think that for a second.'

Letting out a sigh, the young man used the towel to clear up some of the steam that had clouded the surface of the bathroom mirror, before taking a look at his unkempt Raven-blue hair that had gotten long enough to partially obstruct his eyebrows.

'It's… It's been a while since I've seen my own reflection,' Haise thought to himself with a solemn look in his brown eyes, as he stared at his petite facial features, and at the dark bags underneath his eyes that he couldn't remember if they had always been there or not. 'Is this… Is this me? Have I always looked so… Tired?'

Rubbing both his eyes with his thumb and finger, Haise shifted his hand down his face before taking in his own appearance for a little while longer. Feeling closer and closer like he was finally getting grounded to reality, and thus starting to feel more like his old self, Haise finished drying the rest of his hair off, before wrapping the towel around his waist to cover himself.

Just before making contact with the control panel that would open up the metal siding door to allow him access to Mei's hallway, Haise hesitated and paused; his hand hovering over the blue glow of the small screen mounted into the wall. Being overcomed with an uncomfortable feeling at the mere thought of his pink-haired friend seeing him without a shirt on made him cringe, despite knowing fully well from experience that to Mei, a body was just a body, and was only something she saw in a scientific light.

Even so, Haise wanted nothing more than to hide himself from Mei; feeling ashamed of himself, even though he couldn't exactly figure out why. Letting out a trembling breath, Haise decided to use a second towel to cover his torso and his shoulders; marking up his sudden urge to cover himself as nothing more than him wanting to be a considerate guest as he finally built up the courage to exit the bathroom.

I couldn't remember whether or not Mei had actually shown me around her apartment when she first led me inside, but luckily the cluttered-upscale apartment that she lived in only ended up having one bedroom, so it didn't take long for me to find her in the living room.

The living room itself was considerably small, connected to a small area that served as her kitchen, and was perhaps the second most cluttered room in her apartment; the first being her bedroom. Seeing Mei sitting down on her pale black couch and in front of the dried-up tissue-ridden coffee table, I could tell by her bloodshot eyes that she had been crying, even though she was trying to her tears from behind the tissue she was blowing her nose into.

"C-Coffee…?" Mei suddenly asked from behind her tissue, while standing up from the couch and motioning for Haise to sit down on the cushion beside her. "Do you… Do you want coffee?"

Mildly caught off guard by the forced chipper voice Mei was trying to use to cover up her shaking voice, Haise swallowed back the lump in his throat while trying to pretend for her sake that he hadn't just walked into her sobbing. Smiling weakly at her as she continued to hide behind her hands and the used tissue in her palms, Haise politely replied, "Yes please; that would be nice."

"Okay…! Just, umm… Just sit down, please; I'll prepare you a cup," Mei said with a hint of relief in her voice, before stepping out of the way to allow Haise to move past her to sit down where she had wanted him to sit. With her back turned to him so he couldn't see her fighting against her own tears, Mei finally tossed her wadded up tissue and missed as she tried tossing it upon the head of trash that was overfilled with fast food wrappers.

Doing his best to keep his own assumptions about why she hasn't taken her trash out to himself, Haise did his best to avert his gaze from how desperately Mei's apartment needed to be cleaned and chose to instead focus on the back of the young inventor's head. "… Thank you, Hatsume," Haise said with a genuine tone of heartfelt appreciation in his voice that momentarily caused Mei to freeze and tense up.

"… Don't… Don't mention it, Ishimura. I… I…" Mei trailed off while trying to respond to Haise, before suddenly needing to raise her arm up to wipe her face with her sleeve. Letting out a trembling sigh, Mei remained silent while using her keurig to pour her guest a cup of coffee before suddenly saying, "… You're welcome."

Feeling as though the tension within the room was starting to become asphyxiating, Haise couldn't help but to figure that he was the cause behind whatever Mei was going through, and thus felt the need to apologize, and so he did.

"Hatsume, I… I want to say that I'm sorry; I'm sorry for anything I did that caused you to be upset. You're not usually quiet or so… Sad."

Upon hearing what Haise said to her, Mei couldn't help but to shake her head quietly to herself before letting out a humorless chuckle. "Oh, I'm the sad one now, huh…? Oh yeah, that's real rich coming from you, Ishimura; nothing like the pot calling the kettle black, eh…?!"

"W… What?" Was all Haise could utter out; his eyes widened and his mouth slightly agape after hearing the usually bright and optimistic girl suddenly lashing out at him. Thinking about what he could have said that could be misinterpreted as condescending, Haise watched Mei's shoulders rising and falling in rapid succession while he could hear her breathing becoming louder and more aggressive.

"… Y-You have some nerve, Ishimura, you know that?! Not only did I have to release those blueprints you messaged me to my asshole boss, but I had to do that while worrying if you were ever going to wake up from that coma or not… Do you know how awful I felt, not knowing whether or not I'd ever get the chance to even tell you that I'm sorry?!" Mei asked with guilt and rage seeping into her words, all while continuing to glare bitterly down at her own mocha-reflection within the cup of coffee she had prepared for the friend she thought she never was going to see again.

"… I-I visited you everyday at the hospital, Ishimura; every day after work, I'd spend a good four hours talking to you, sharing how strange I thought the world was becoming, and about how much I was sorry that I took credit for your work," Mei said in a slightly less aggressive voice, as if though her sorrow was overtaking the rage that was dissipating from her being.

"… After a week of visiting you, I was told that I had to start doing night shifts for a while to catch up on a new production of firearms that were going to be distributed to the heroes and sidekicks who were working under Endeavor's network of agencies. When I finally ended up getting my regular schedule back, that's when the hospital told me that you were already discharged, and that they only had the address of the apartment you were evicted from on file," Mei said, while Haise himself just found out at that very moment that he was now homeless.

"… During that week, when I poured my heart out to you for four hours every night, I had always assumed you never really were able to hear me, but after I was told that you had already left, and that you didn't even put me as one of your emergency contacts? Well… W-Well, I… I started to think that maybe you did hear me, and that you… That you hated me for what I told you." Mei said with exhaled breath; taking a few moments to compose herself while Haise watched from the living room as she anxiously tapped her fingers against the counter top of her small kitchen.

"I… I felt sorry for myself, so I didn't even think to actually go out of my own way to look for you until like two weeks later, and well… Well, the more I would look for you after work, the more I started to believe that you were… That you were dead," Mei admitted, before swallowing back the lump in her throat.

From her body language alone, Haise could tell that Mei wanted to speak more of the sorrows that had been undoubtedly eating away at her spirits, but could also tell that she started to choke up from what she wanted to say next, and thus needed a few minutes to find her voice once more.

"I… I-I… I started to… Started to blame myself, you know? I mean, y-you wouldn't have ever been out in the open, you would have never gotten your research stolen, and almost killed if I… If I just stood up for you instead of making you leave that restaurant for the sake of my own career," Mei said in a quiet voice, before raising her dominant hand up to cover her mouth to muffle a whimper.

"… I have failed you, Ishimura. I failed at being your friend, and I've failed myself for being such a coward… So no, Ishimura, you are NOT sorry, because you have NOTHING to be sorry for…!" Mei spat out with despair in her voice, as she grabbed a hold of the edge of the kitchen counter to keep herself from losing her balance, as the room around her began to spin and get blurry.

"You're not the sorry one around here… The word 'sorry' doesn't even begin to express how- W-What are you doing?" Mei suddenly asked with her tear-ridden eyes widening as she looked down to see Haise's pale hand reaching from beside her to grab a hold of the coffee mug. Seeing him pulling it away, Mei couldn't help but feel suddenly frustrated at the idea that Haise had decided to interrupt her heartfelt apology, and everything she had told him meant so little to him that couldn't wait for her to finish saying sorry to him.

That all changed when Mei turned her head over her shoulder to watch as Haise opened her fridge to pull out a container of creamer from it, so he could pour a considerable amount of its contents into the cup before placing it back inside the refrigerator. Taking out a disposable napkin from the stash in her drawer that she had accumulated from her nights of take-out, Mei blew her nose and wiped her face as Haise stirred the drink with a clean spoon he had found on the counter.

"Since… Since when did you like creamer…?" Mei asked in a shaken and confused voice, as she pressed her rump up against the kitchen counter to turn her face toward Haise's direction.

"I'm not a fan of creamer, but considering that you have it in your fridge, I figured that you're quite the connoisseur of hazelnut," Haise said with a gentle smile spread across his pale lips, before extending the cup of stirred coffee out for Mei to take.

Grabbing a hold of the warm cup while brushing her fingers against Haise's cold hands, Mei stared at the cup's contents before reluctantly looking up to meet the young man's comforting gaze. "… I've created power armor that runs off of batteries containing energy conducted from cold fusion. I've developed several distinctive weapons and support items using you and your father's research, and I've managed to find a way to become the head research developer and director for Japan's most prominent and renowned tech facility…"

"… And yet… And yet here I am, standing before someone who has every right to hate me, and I… I can't figure out for the life of me why you're still being… Being nice to me; showing me kindness that I clearly don't deserve," Mei admitted with a saddened smile on her face, as she looked away from Haise's brown eyes to stare at the coffee in her hands. "… Are you trying to be the bigger person here, maybe you're trying to make me feel worse than I already do? Because if you are, then, well… According to my calculations, and the way my heart feels right now… It's working."

"… No, no those aren't my intentions at all," Haise clarified without ever losing the smile spread across his lips. "Hatsume, I'm… I'm not upset at all for what you did; if anything, you did more with my research then I would have done by myself. And as far as what happened at the restaurant and after… None of that's your fault; I was simply…" Haise trailed off slightly, after suddenly being reminded of the reason why he had been attacked in the first place.

'That thing… I think it tried killing me because I was Mr. Iroh's friend… Mr. Iroh…!'

"… I was simply at the wrong place, at the wrong time… Hatsume, I actually… I actually have something else on my mind that I want to ask you; apologies in advance if it's off topic," Haise said with his smile fading from his face, which also prompted Mei to look up from the coffee to meet his gaze once again.

"… Ah, please… Go ahead," Mei said with a sniffle, before once again using her sleeve to shamelessly wipe the mucus and tears from her face; something that Haise didn't really mind, due to mostly him being too worried about the answer he would get from asking the question that was within his head.

"… You know who Mr. Iroh is, right? The man who owned the community center and who would mentor me?" Haise asked nervously, and almost instantly regretted asking his question after seeing the gloom and reluctant expression washing over Mei's face.

"… Ishimura, if you're asking whether or not I know of his whereabouts, then I'm sorry to say that I have no idea where Iroh could be. He was the first person I tried searching for after I couldn't find you; I figured he would have known your whereabouts more than anyone else," Mei explained, while feeling sorry that the answer she was giving was something that Haise wasn't wanting to hear. "But, umm… I-I managed to do a little investigating on my end, and none of the bodies that were identified as casualties on that day matched anything of Iroh's description, so… So that's something, right…?"

"… You're right, that's better than what I was sort of expecting to say, to be honest," Haise said with a gloomy look on his face, despite still smiling at Mei. "… Thank you for having looked into that Hatsume, you didn't have to do any of that."

Although it looked to Haise as if Mei didn't think she deserved to receive his gratitude, he could tell that she was at least starting to relax after it became apparent to her that he didn't hold any resentment toward her like how she had thought.

"… Don't mention it, Ishimura; it's the least I could have done for you." Mei said with a momentary smile, before suddenly becoming melancholy as her gaze met with his once more. "… For what it's worth, Ishimura, I wasn't planning on any of this happening. I mean, like… Ugh, words…! W-What I mean to say is that I wasn't going to use this time to go into that whole… Whole tangent, about how sorry I was, and all that other emotional crap," Mei said with a dry chuckle, before taking a moment to take a sip of the coffee that she had originally made for Haise.

"… I had this whole thing planned out where I would have you sit down, I would have given you coffee and explained to you just how much had changed since you were awake. Instead, I ended up just throwing my own pity party, and needed you to be my emotional validation instead of the other way around… Like how it was to be," Mei said with a frown on her face, while subtly averting her gaze from Haise's eyes once more, all the while still processing everything herself.

Feeling the need to say something, really anything so that he could fill the empty silence between himself and Mei, Haise smirked a bit and let out a quiet chuckle before thinking back to some words of wisdom that his mentor had taught him.

"Well… It's like how Mr. Iroh used to say all the time, and I quote, "When shit happens, just flush it down the drain"," Haise said jokingly with a endearing smile across his face, which earned him a confused look from Mei before she started to bust out laughing; finding it hilarious that someone as wise and well-tempered as Iroh would say something so crude, and finding Haise openly swearing in front her was just icing on the cake.

Seeing Mei cracking up and crying tears of joy rather than tears of sadness made me genuinely feel happy; even if I had to resort to quoting one of Mr. Iroh's… Less than savory proverbs.

The fact that Mr. Iroh hadn't been found dead yet by someone as meticulous and tenacious as Mei did comfort me, but it really only brought up more questions than anything else.

Was he still alive? Why did he disappear, and where was he? What was he doing now that his passion project was burnt to the ground? And most importantly, what was it about him that made being his friend punishable by death?

With these questions on my mind, along with the blurry memories that refused to leave from the recesses of my subconscious still haunting me, the fact that Mei told me that she essentially stole my research and took credit for it didn't bother me as much as it admittedly should have.

As in, it didn't bother me at all in comparison to what was already on my figurative plate.

With me dedicating myself to finding out the answers to at least one of those questions behind Mr. Iroh's involvement on the day Tartarus fell, it was then after Mei and I talked casually for a while that I offered to help her pick up the place, in conjunction with her giving me an update about what had happened in the wake of everything that had gone down since then.

Helping her pick up the pieces of her life that I could do on my end, Mei's mood seemed to be improving with each bag of garbage we filled up and disposed of, and despite the grim subject of our conversations being of the Orwellian future that she and I had to call our lives, she was seemingly enjoying my company as much as I was enjoying hers.

From the three hours we spent cleaning up her one bedroom apartment, and sorting out her inventions that she was beginning to once again refer to as her 'babies', I had come to understand that Endeavor had successfully merged almost every hero agency in Japan underneath his ownership, and was given more authority than even the police to do what he deemed as necessary to keep the peace. Especially when it came to his jurisdiction in Musutafu.

Petty crime was at an all-time low, and any villains who tried to use violence as means to an end were faced with extremely harsh resistance that usually ended up with them being killed, or with them being imprisoned with life sentences. For once in what seemed like forever in modern age, the justice system underneath Endeavor was even more merciless than the villains themselves.

Rather than facing consequences, the heroes and sidekicks who worked under one of Endeavor's agencies were often handsomely rewarded for capturing and imprisoning villains, and were still compensated even if they ended up taking the life of someone who was deemed a villain or a violent perpetrator.

All these unforgiving and harsh punishments were adopted not for the sake of deteriorating crime as I had initially thought when Mei first told me about the lack of accountability that heroes were given. It was after hearing of the terrorist attacks and high ranking heroes and politicians being targeted by the group known as God Eater did I begin to understand why such measurements were being taken.

God Eater wasn't original in the sense that their efforts were suggestive that they were aiming to annihilate Musutafu's government and those who stood between them and the Prime Minister, but unlike the Paranormal Liberation Front, they were far more cruel and didn't seem to be openly trying to push any particular agenda onto their adversaries, with the exception of fear and their defeat.

From what Mei told me, God Eater's agents had been reported as going as far torturing captured targets and using them as bait to ambush their enemy, and were known to mutilate politicians who they had successfully captured from their raids.

The only silver lining that Mei had discovered that made God Eater stand out from the Paranormal Liberation Front was the fact that there had been no reports of them politicians who weren't working directly for the Prime Minister, and nor had there ever been an unprovoked civilian casualty reported by the analytics department of Endeavor's main office.

All in all, in this Brave New World there no longer seemed to be the dynamic where heroes would fight to protect society from villains who were trying to thwart it. No, the reality of what was happening in Musutafu was far less romantic than it once had been depicted from an outsider's perspective.

There was an ongoing war between the heroes and politicians who were in Musutafu, and the villains and radicals who worked together in God Eater. And as much as I wanted to support the side that I saw as heroic, I found myself more concerned with Mei's safety than the goals of the hero agencies.

After the lifetimes I had experienced, nothing else at the very moment Mei and I finished cleaning up her apartment mattered to me. For the first time on that grim day, I watched her smile and talk the way she used to, and the way Mei excitedly told me about her latest 'Q-Gear' experiment made me glad that she hasn't lost her passion for inventing.

Mei and Mr. Iroh had always cared about me when no one else actually did. They were the only two people in my life that ever saw past the expectations and legacy brought onto me by my late father's success. They were the only two people who I truly cared about in turn.