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.]
The immortal sighed, deciding to address the points which the time traveler had raised one by one. "Time doesn't mean much when you have no means of keeping track of it," he acknowledged, less than a year he had been in his prison? It had felt like an age. With nothing to keep him company but his thoughts, and occasionally this time traveler who came to visit him. He couldn't help but to be a little surprised at the indignation on his companion's face when he quickly contradicted him after he'd said that Hiro had never needed him.
"I was never meant to be a hero. I was a drunk. A rudderless, happy, drunk. I never claimed to be anything more, or anything less. You were the one that told me I was a hero. You left me on the doorstep of the 90 angry Ronin. I would have been nothing, any other man, entirely forgettable if it weren't for you," he replied somewhat bitterly. "But you came along... you built me up, only to knock me down farther than ever. You left me with nothing-not even my name was mine anymore. I couldn't be the hero you wanted, so you abandoned me," he accused, forcing his voice to sound angry, though these last words broke his heart all over again. "You are Takezo Kensei, Yaeko saw to that. You don't..." But he stopped, halted mid-sentence at the smaller man's admission, and sudden stunned silence-that he blamed himself more than anyone. He had heard this before of course while he was buried in the ground, but it was one thing to have heard it, and another to see the proof of it in his former friend's face and body as he confessed it.
"Who knows what we're meant to be? I would never have guessed I could travel through time and space but I can. I never dared to hope I would meet Takezo Kensei but I did." Hiro sighed, suddenly tired of all of it and a bit annoyed to have Ando staring into the nothingness, frozen. The little man leant back against a tree, one arm fold against him while he made a quick twist of the wrist with the other to teleport Ando home. The other man simply vanishing as Hiro, once again, pushed his glasses back with his index. Well, the immortal thought impressed, that was definitely a new trick. "Time paradox... Annoying and they give me headaches." He mumbled, massaging the bridge of his nose.
"I built myself on the legend of Takezo Kensei, I learned honor and strength and the will to do good. And I was the one trying to teach said Kensei he could do so many things. You can not die. You have more than many lives, you just can't die. At all." He couldn't help but smile when the other said he was Takezo Kensei. "Maybe I am. But... But you could have been. I know it, I saw it in you. You did it, you were him." They were now completely alone in the graveyard, the moon shining above them like a watchful eyes. "If I hadn't been weak, you'd still be. Maybe... Maybe there is no Takezo, maybe he is just an idea, a concept and the only things remaining are... Hiro and Adam."
As sad as it was, maybe this was the answer. The very idea weighed on him more than anything else. They'd both fought to be Takezo Kensei but in the end... Neither of them were. Hiro had wanted this blond English man to be the hero of his childhood, not even wondering if it was right, then, to fix time he'd stolen the sword and made himself the hero. But in the end... All he'd done was tear time apart and making mistakes over mistakes, breaking history just fine all by himself.
Finally, when the immortal seemed to have regained his composure and began speaking again, explaining to himself the reason that he would have wanted to keep the time traveler alive, he had to step in and correct him. "You are not my nemesis," he interrupted, shaking his head. "I never wished for you to be." Oh, he thought sadly, he had so many wishes for what this Carp might be, but enemy-that was never among them, even when he had felt so utterly betrayed, still a part of him had hoped... though he did not allow himself to say so. "I hate what you did to me Carp. What I allowed you to do to me. But I could never find it in myself to hate you. Believe me, I tried. For centuries," he acknowledged shaking his head. "All I ever wanted was to be the hero you thought I was, but I failed. So many times now."
"Perhaps in another life," he smiled ruefully quoting himself the first time he had ever faced down the grim reaper, when he had thought he would die, shot up with arrows in his companion's tearful arms, before they had discovered his ability. "I daresay I'll have many."
"Oh, I am your nemesis. What else are we to each other," the time traveler's voice held such an exhausted resignation, as he shrugged, like it didn't matter. "After all, a nemesis is a person who you love and hate the most at the same time. I admire you, even now, despite everything. I still look up to you, hoping to see one more time the goodness I saw in your eyes. But in the same breath I fear you, for what you are capable of doing, I... I try to hate you for this will you have to kill so many, to think yourself a god amongst men," Hiro was talking to much, and he knew it, he should not be bearing his heart like this to the enemy, but... he couldn't think about this man as his enemy. It was too much, too hard..