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.]

If it was reactions that the immortal had wanted, he should have been happy. Hiro was ever the open book he always had been. Even when he did his best to keep a straight face his eyes spoke on his behalf. All the guilt rushing into them, those two dark pearls, always so expressive. H had been aware that Kensei would suffocate so many times he would not be able to count. Had known that it would be the most horrible thing imaginable to a man who couldn't die-or at least could not remain dead. When the man told him he had had nothing to tell him, Hiro looked away for a second, before forcing himself to look into Kensei's startlingly blue eyes once more. "I know," the time traveler whispered, his voice a little lower and weaker than he had been expecting and hoping it would be. But the more Adam talked, the harder the words seemed to hit him, stabbing him in his over-sized heart. "I know," he repeated the weight of his shame and guilt settling upon his shoulders.

Hiro looked as though the weight of the world had suddenly been thrust upon him. But curiously enough, watching the way his spirit and shoulders sagged, seeing the usual light fading from his eyes, was not nearly as satisfying as the immortal had thought that it might be, and it occurred to Adam that while he had wanted a reaction from the smaller man, this had not in fact been the one that he was hoping for. Habit and instinct of telling himself that he hated Hiro for so long, so many centuries dictating that he should make him pay. Hurt him, the way this Carp had hurt him. But for all his capacity for cruelty Adam couldn't find it within himself to draw any pleasure from it.

When Adam asked why he thought he would be able to convince him, Hiro seemed to find some of his nerve again, crossing his arms to stare at him again. "Because I was your inspiration, and you were my hero," he stated. "This is not something that dies easily. So... I broke your heart, I stole your princess, I did awful things to you like... Locking you here, but I couldn't let you destroy humanity. That's what villains do, and saving people is what heroes do," he replied his unbreakable certainty in right and wrong rearing it's head again. And suddenly he knew, remembered that in every story, the hero and his nemesis were always close like this, unable to escape or be themselves without the other. "I need your help because... someone stole a formula. Someone worse than you," he concluded causing the immortal to raise a disbelieving eyebrow. Someone worse than a man who had sworn to destroy everything that younger man loved- to destroy the entire world?

He seemed to find, at least a little of himself once more when he asked about why he thought that he of all people might be able to convince him to help him, to help save the world he had been so eager to destroy. "That was nearly 400 years, and many lifetimes ago, Carp," the blond reminded him, using the nickname which he had given him again before he could stop himself. How was it that that name was still habit to him? Why did this infuriating little man have to be right? Why couldn't he let go of him? How was there still some part of him that had fought his efforts to cut out all things Hiro, every memory of himself? Why did he still care what he thought about him? "I fell from your good graces easily enough," he added bitterly, when Hiro continued that such a bond was not one that was easily broken or severed. "You never needed me. Just the name I fashioned for myself. Why should it be any different now?"

Hiro took a step towards the coffin where the blond still leaned against the edge of it, but suddenly froze when the immortal confessed that he would not have let him die, clearly perplexed, pushing his glasses up on his nose. "But, we can't be the only living people in the world Kensei. This is not right. You are not a god to decide the fate of the world. None of us are. Not you, not me, not Peter Petrelli or Claire Bennet. No one. We are just men with great abilities, and we must use them for the greater good," he concluded, squinting a little at him. Why should the immortal have spared him of all people from his wrath, he who would have perhaps deserved it the most? "Kensei... why? Why would you have saved me? To... take revenge? To leave me in an empty world?"

He frowned. "It was 400 years ago for you. For me it was yesterday. You said it again less than a year ago, in this vault, just when you tried to kill everyone," Hiro replied with growing concern. This conversation was not going anywhere where he had planned or wanted to take it first. He had wanted to make it about the formula, about helping them, about Kensei redeeming himself, and about apologizing, not... Not a talk that was shaping up to look like what he had been confessing to this grave. Still when the immortal told him that he never needed him, Hiro snapped. "I did," he protested quickly, with a ferocity that he couldn't entirely explain.

"I did need you Kensei! You were... You were my hope that anyone could do good," his arms had fallen by his sides again, but this time he was almost offended. How could he possibly think that? "You were... You were a drunk, but I saw it in your eyes! This spark of good, this will to do the right thing. I know it, I'm sure of it," his voice raised in protest, hands fluttering about him in desperate emphasis. "It is not different now, you are still this person. I know he lies somewhere inside of you. You were Takezo Kensei, the hero, for awhile you were, before I broke it all."

Suddenly he shut his mouth, realizing what he'd just said and he took back the few steps he'd taken toward Kensei. He clenched his jaws, angry at himself for having lost his self control. He clenched his fists, took a deep breath and found back his composure. He'd been about to ask 'and why would you keep the man you hate?' but he knew. He locked his dark eyes in Kensei's and whispered. "Of course... Your nemesis. I am the only person you could keep because... Because I am what you hate most but also all you have, all you can possibly rely on, the only one who can understand." He sighed. "Just like you are for me."

Adam watched as this revelation that the immortal man whom Hiro thought hated him so much would have spared his life sank in for him. The blond looked away when he did that endearing nervous tick with his glasses, pushing them farther up the bridge of his nose with a single finger. Waited as it occurred to the man opposite him that as evil as Hiro thought he was- as much as he called him a villain, there might still be something there. Some human part of him that still thought of Hiro as his friend, even after everything that had come between them before and since. "Because I'm a selfish bastard," he replied avoiding the man's gaze when he asked about why he would save him. "And because sometimes, even immortals and villains get lonely," the blond replied simply.