Author's Notes: This story would not be possible without the contributions of fellow user dori4n, who's fellow love of this smaller "Heroes" ship, chatting about head canon, and Skype roleplaying helped to inspire and create this story. So if you like it please, make sure to check out their page and stories as well.
[Please see bottom of each chapter for translations to Japanese words or phrases used by the characters.]
"Hello Carp," the immortal greeted hearing those familiar footsteps approaching his grave, smiling a little at the prospect of his visitor. "You're going to make the other ancestors jealous you know. Visiting me this frequently. No one else in this row comes nearly so often as you," he teased softly, though of course he knew that the time traveler would not be able to hear him, that even attempting a conversation like this was foolish, and utterly futile.
"It never stops. One crisis slows down, another starts." His friends voice sounded older somehow, in a way that the immortal decided he didn't like. Not at all. He sounded sad, exhausted, beaten, in a way that he had never heard before. Not even when the man had found his hero in the vault, such a far cry from the Takezo Kensei he had once followed and believed in, on the edge of breaking history and destroying the world.
"It's like... No matter how much I fight, how hard I struggle... It will never stop. People will always go crazy and do horrible things. I am scared. I fear for this world. I fear for the future.." There was probably, no one alive that understood better than the immortal listening to the young time traveler the burden he felt. The sense that no matter what you did, it would be undone, messed up again, perhaps even worse all too soon. Yes, in retrospect, perhaps his solution to wipe out the bulk of humanity and simply start over had not been the most logical or ethical one, but it had been born of the same frustration and fears as this young man now spoke of, borne entirely too long.
"They don't listen to me, they... Think I'm a joke, they never take me seriously. Maybe they are right. Maybe I am just an idiot."
"No," the blond replied firmly shaking his head, one hand reaching up to press against the lid of the coffin. Knowing he could not lift it, could not possibly hope to break his way out, but wishing if only for a moment that he could reach beyond it to the man above that spoke to him. To touch him, comfort him somehow. "You are a hero, the very best of humanity, the epitome of hope-don't let them take that away from you, Carp. You are not an idiot. They're the idiots for discounting you," the immortal replied though he knew he could not hear him.
There was a silence again for awhile, but no longer the uncomfortable or angry silence that had once passed between them. The immortal did not pass the quiet moments cursing or trying to convince himself how much he despised the man who had trapped him here, and came to speak to the ground. "I miss you calling me carp. No one does. I wouldn't like it anyway."
The blond smiled softly, good. Carp was his name, Hiro was his Carp. No one else's. But the smile was bittersweet, because he knew the truth, however much he wished to ignore it. The time traveler was not, nor had he ever been his, he thought as he listened to his friend's footsteps trailed away into the distance.
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"It's noon. The sun is high and bright. I don't do this to hurt you you know, I tell you because... Because I don't want you to forget how it is outside. So... The grass is very green and there is a little breeze. The air is cool and the sky very blue." The immortal closed his eyes it wasn't as though there was much to see besides the four walls of the coffin anyway, he thought, allowing the image which Hiro described for him this time in a lapse of conversation beside his grave to fill him up. He could still remember what the sun felt like on his skin, though it seemed like it had been a long time since he had experienced it. Could imagine the grass a deep, and beautiful green, the breeze whipping the blades softly about his companion's feet, a nearly cloudless blue sky. The image dissolved, or perhaps it merged into a more familiar and ancient one, followed by a heavy, disheartened shy. Why Yaeko?
"I think... I think I wont leave you forever. It would be... It would be stupid. I only need to find someone who can hold you back. Someone powerful enough." He was thinking of setting him free, the immortal thought rather taken aback by the idea. He was overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction going on in the world, so his solution was to open Pandora's box?
Not that the immortal had grown any more found of the four tight walls that surrounded him, but-well he had grown used to them. Had even become desensitized to running out of oxygen, and asphyxiating twice or so per day, only to come back again. He waited for such times as these when his friend would come to visit him, to talk to the earth, but if he was honest with himself, he had not dared to hope that the hero might change his mind about keeping him imprisoned here like this.
His next words are soft, so that even with his highly attuned ears, the immortal must strain a little, and spoken with a sigh of resignation. He does not linger at the grave after they are spoken, leaving the man 6 feet under alone with his thoughts. "I don't want to leave you here forever."