Chapter Two: Water Willow and Wellaway

As soon as he opens his eyes he knows something is wrong. The air feels heavy and wrong in a way that only haunted his dreams on worse nights. He sits up groggily, running a hand through silver hair. The moon is what he notices next. It is a heavy, yellow and bloated thing hanging against an unnatural sky.

"What the hell?" he says, blinking sleep from his eyes. He moves closer to the window to look out into the city. He opens the window and leans his head out. He feels a shiver run down his spine as he sees that all traffic has come to a halt and coffins stand in the place of people. "Are you serious?"

He hears the ticking of a clock and life rushes back into the streets all at once. Cars continue on their way as though they were never frozen and a deafening roar echoes in his ears as people are released from their eerie coffins. The wind begins to blow again, all at once, and he yelps at the sharp cold air that dances across his skin. He huddles into himself to shield himself from the wind. He's never been good with cold, even now, and he grumbles to himself that Spring should mean warm weather. It takes him a second to hear his phone ringing over the din of living, breathing people. He slams the window shut before stumbling his way to his nightstand where he sees his phone with a name flashing on the display.

Kirijo Mitsuru calls for him and he is glad of it.

"Did you feel that?" he says as he answers the phone. "Was that what I think it was?"

"Yes," Mitsuru's voice answers and even over the phone he can hear how this turn of events has shattered her cool composure. "That isn't the only new development."

"What else is there?" he asks. He feels worried, confused and excited all at once. He isn't seventeen anymore, he tells himself. He needs to be responsible, needs to be focused on fixing this rather than using it as a challenge. Try as he might, he can't seem to banish the exhilaration that comes from feeling the nostalgia of the Dark Hour run over his skin.

"It's her," she says and he feels his blood become frozen solid at the words.

"What about her?" As he speaks, he finds his voice can't get above a whisper.

"She's gone, Akihiko." He swallows and banishes the burning from his eyes. It's been so long, and he hates himself for it, but sometimes he thinks she'd been better off…

"Dead?" he finds himself saying the words and hates how easily they come to his lips. "Is she dead?"

"No," Mitsuru says and he embraces the flood of relief that thaws his blood out. "Not that I can see. She's just gone, as though she woke up and went for a stroll. We're reviewing the security tapes now but I doubt we'll find anything."

"I'm on my way," he says, hanging up before Mitsuru has the chance to reply. He dresses quickly, slipping on weathered jeans and a sweater hoodie. He looks at himself in one small and smudged mirror he owns. A tired silver haired man looks back at him. He'd grown into himself his first years of college. He was, despite his chagrin, still slender and lithe but his muscles were a little bulkier than they had been when he was seventeen. His chest and shoulders had broadened just enough to show that he was a grown man. He wonders what she would think of his appearance and shakes his head. He stops by the door to slip on his shoes and looks up to see it in his vision.

It is a thick red scarf, ancient and collecting dust. He thought he'd had it put away. He moves towards it, intending to shove it back into whatever box of pain he had decided to store it in. But his fingers tangle in it instead and he finds himself pulling it out to get a closer look.

He eyes the closed window, hearing the wind screech through the gaps in the window panes and his hand bunches tighter around the old red scarf. He shakes it free of dust and wraps it around his neck before leaving his empty apartment.

The hospital isn't that far from his apartment-maybe two miles. Akihiko starts jogging. I'll get there faster this way anyway, he thinks but he knows that isn't the only or most important reason. It [robably isn't the best idea to run right after the Dark Hour reappearing but he needs this. He needs time by himself to sort through this all. He needs the blood pumping hot through his veins and the slow burn in his chest. He needs to push his legs and hear the slap of his sneakers against the concrete. He quickens his pace gradually until his jog has turned into a steady run. His breath burns in his chest and echoes heavily, almost drowning out the sound of his footfalls. He runs by the movie theater and doesn't think of all the film festivals he had been to with her or of all the ones he hadn't. He runs by Rafflesia and doesn't think of how every two weeks he buys a bouquet of sunflowers.

He doesn't think of anything as he runs past the outskirts of Port Island Station and the hospital begins to loom over the horizon.

He darts into the hospital lobby, bypassing the elevator for the stairs and slows his pace as he makes his way to hospital room 4013. The path he takes his familiar. He has been here before, jogging up these concrete stairs but he finds himself thinking of the very first time his feet made their way up this path.

After Minako had first closed her eyes on the rooftop, he hadn't noticed anything was wrong. He had just smiled like a fool, holding her close and waiting for her to wake up. It was only when she stopped responding to his voice that he started to panic. He'd shaken her so hard that he was afraid he may have killed her and only Mitsuru's hand gripping his shoulder calmed him down. Try as she may, she couldn't disentangle his arms from around her. He knew he should let go of her but he couldn't force himself to. Mitsuru worked around him as if he wasn't even there, checking Minako's pulse and feeling her temperature.

The happiness their friends had felt at remembering their promise turned to despair as they couldn't get Minako to wake up.

Akihiko runs up another flight of stairs, rounding the corner and continuing his way up.

He had hidden here after they had brought her to the hospital and he had been forced to let go of her. He'd been ready to punch the E.R doctor but once again, Mitsuru's hand had gripped his shoulder. Even then, he had been amazed at how his best friend had been able to keep her composure. She had seemed so cool and so invincible that Akihiko had hated her for it until he heard the trembling in her voice.

He'd stood for a time, watching the doctors and nurses run in and out, trying in vain to help Minako. When they'd started talking about how she was having a hard time breathing on her own, he had fled and hidden in the stairwell.

In the end, the doctor's couldn't find a thing wrong with her. They claimed exhaustion, saying that she would eventually wake up again. But they discretely hooked her up to machines and moved her into a permanent hospital room. Eventually, they quit saying she would wake up at all.

He couldn't let go, just like Shinji said he couldn't.

He jogs through the doors to the fourth floor and slows down to a walk. He sees the yellow police tape and slides underneath it. Mitsuru, Aigis and Detective Kurosawa stand beside her empty bed. Mitsuru looks elegant as ever, even though her red hair is tangled and frazzled. He sees white silk fabric poke out from underneath her coat and he realizes she must have rushed over as soon as she rolled out of bed. He confirms his suspicions when he sees house slippers on her feet. Kurosawa takes off his hat to run a shaky hand through graying and thinning hair. Akihiko wonders if he has always looked so old or if it is just an effect of fatigue. Aigis stands silently next to Mitsuru. She looks the same as always, except now she wears a red tie instead of a large red bow. Her blue eyes are heavy with sorrow and her gaze is fixed on something that lies on the floor.

"Find anything?" he says by way of greeting and his eyes are instantly drawn to the yellow sunflowers on the floor.

"No," Mitsuru says, following his gaze. She sighs softly, and his holds his hand out for her to find. She takes it and squeezes it in an almost reassuring manner that instantly calms him. "But I have faith that she is awake, and not dead or dying."

"The tapes show her lying in bed one minute," Kurosawa explains. "And the next minute, she is gone and everything's a mess."

"So whatever happened," Akihiko says. "Happened during the Dark Hour."

"Correct," Mitsuru says.

"Have you called the others?" he asks and she nods.

"Yes. I called them after I got off the phone with you," she says. "Fuuka is on her way, as are Shinjiro and Ken. Yukari and Junpei won't be able to make it until tonight."

"That's right," Akihiko says, more to lighten up the atmosphere than anything else. "Those two are in the United States right now, aren't they?" Mitsuru nods.

"Yes," Mitsuru answers, seemingly grateful for the change in subject. "Junpei has been doing well as a baseball pitcher here in Japan. He's being scouted for an American team, although I haven't heard if he'll accept or not."

"He's probably only doing so well because Yukari is his manager," Akihiko says and his voice sounds weak to his ears. "She's always been the one to keep him in line, ever since-" He falls silent and moodily stares at the empty bed.

"Minako-san is alive," Aigis says in that oddly halting and mechanical voice of hers. "I can feel it."

"Well, you'd probably know better than anyone else," Akihiko says. He supposes the words sound bitter but he is too tired to care. He sighs, bringing a hand up to rub at the bridge of his nose. "Sorry, Aigis. That wasn't f-" The mechanical maiden moves swiftly and she is standing in front of him before he can finish his apology. Her blue eyes-too blue to be human, he thinks-stare through him with a frightening intensity.

"Do not apologize, Sanada-san. But please, do not worry. We will find her," and at these words, the corners of Aigis' mouth turn up into a real, genuine smile. "And we will all be together once again. I know this with all of my heart."

Starting now, he words come back to haunt him over the span of four long years. We'll never be apart.