Disclaimer: I do not own Shadow Hearts, nor the characters appearing in it. The plot is inspired by the 2005 English basic course examination text of high schools in Germany. Though I worked fairly over it and rewrote it with my own ideas, there may be passages referring to the original text by Mitch Albom.

What happened to me?

Merely a week after the trading between Nicolai and me, I headed back to Asia for some days. Those times were terrible. I was jumping back and forward between Asia and Russia. But I had no choice. I needed Ishimura to be satisfied for my goals, or he would turn mistrustful about my demands of time and money...

Only this time I came for a rather pleasant reason than visiting the Minister. I had an appointment with an old friend of mine. He encouraged me with my interest for magic, as he had always been a medium between our world and the realm of the dead...

His advices would be useful in my work with the émigré manuscript.

I was shocked finding him a situation far worse than he mentioned in his letter. I recognised that he had turned old very fast, or maybe I had not cared enough to notice it...

Deciding to put my research into the background and just spend some of his rare time with my old mentor was the first human acting I performed for month.

The sunrays flooded through the windows lightening the wooden floor. We had been talking there for nearly five hours. The phone rang again, Mamoru was one of the first people I knew to have one. He asked his helper Kagome to get it. She had been jolting the callers in his little black appointment book. Friends, meditation teachers, a discussion group, someone who wanted to talk to him for a research...

"You know, Masaji, now that I'm dying, I've become much more interesting to all those peoples."

"You were always interesting, Mamoru!" He smiled at me.

"And you are always kind." ... No I'm not. I thought

"The thing is, these people see me as a human bridge. I'm not as alive as I used to be anymore, but I'm not yet dead. I'm some sort of... in-between." He had to cough hardly before he regained his smile.

"I'm on my last great journey here, the one that we all take part in sooner or later. And all the people want me to tell them what to pack." I'm not able to say why he received me so warmly. I was hardly the promising soldier who had left him eight years earlier. Had it not been for my research, Mamoru might have died without even seeing me again. I had no good excuse for this, except the one that everyone these days seemed to have. I had become too wrapped up in the circumstances of my own life... I was busy.

What happened to me? I asked myself. Mamoru's scratchy, high voice took me back to my recruiting years, when I thought rich people were demonic capitalists, a shirt and a tie were prison clothes ... And a life without freedom; I mean to get up and go, a soft breeze in your face down the streets of Paris into the mountains of Tibet, was not a good life at all.

What happened to me? The military happened, Yoshiko happened, death and sickness and getting fat and going lonely happened. I traded lots of my dreams and believes for a bigger pay check and I never ever realized I was doing it.

Yet here was Mamoru talking with the wonder of my teenage years, as if I'd been simply on a long vacation.

"Have you found someone to share your heart with?" He asked and hit the agonizing point by the first go.

"Are you giving to your community?

"Are you at peace with yourself?"

"Are you trying to be as human as you can be?"

I felt like he would be able to see directly into my darkening soul... I squirmed wanting to show I had been grappling deeply with such questions.

What happened to me?...

I once promised myself I would never work just for money, that I would never ever, in no way, join the army, that I would live in picturesque, inspirational places on the countryside, with a divine lovely wife and at least two smart little children.

Instead I had been in the imperial military for nearly ten years now, walking the same way every day, visiting the same monotonous workplace, working- sleeping- working, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

I was nearly twenty-nine, more efficient than in preparation, obviously, but tied to desks and weapons and orders. I wrote devote reports about superiors who for the most part, could not care less about people like me.

I was no longer young for my peer group, nor did I walk around in grey sweatshirts with unlit cigarettes in my mouth... at least not in public... I did not have long discussions over ramen about he meaning of life. My days were full, yet I remained much of the time unsatisfied...

What happened to me?

"Dying..." Mamoru suddenly said. "Yes, dying is only one thing to be sad over, Masaji. Living unhappy is something else. So many of the people who come to visit me these days are unhappy."

"Why that?" I asked like a naïve child.

"Well for one thing... the time and culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We are teaching the wrong things. And you have to be very strong and suicidal enough to say: If the culture doesn't work, don't buy it. Create your own, follow your own believes, without regrets. Most people can't do it. They're more unhappy than me, even in my current condition.

I may be dying soon, yes. But I am surrounded by loving, caring souls. How many people can say that?"

I was astonished by his complete lack of self-pity. Mamoru, who could no longer stroll in the woods, swim, bath or ride, who could no longer answer his own door or just roll over in bed. How could he so easily accept this undeniable cruel way of life? ...

I shot a glance at my watch... "I think I have to leave now, Sir." He nodded understanding.

"I will not see you again, will I? So let me give you my last words right now. As your mother was until her death, I will always be proud of you, whatever path you'll choose to take, my son."

I never returned to my birthplace in Uwajima.

Note: This is just a simple, short and independent story. It has no reference to my other fanfiction about Kato. If I should decide to use it in it, this note will be edited, of course. :P

Feel free to condemn me for having Kato acting and think this way in you reviews.