AN: Sorry about my failure to update as per promised in the previous chapter. There was an error within FFN that is now happily resolved. Thanks for everybody's patience! Last chapter should be up by tomorrow. *crosses fingers*

"What was all that about?"

Pit shuffled next to him, head bent. "I thought it was pretty self-explanatory."

"But that was insane," Luigi insisted, "Iwata's not even like that."

"Of course he isn't. He overreacted. As he thinks about it, I expect he'll probably regret it. But that's not anything for you to worry about, because you don't exist."

Luigi, startled, was forced to acknowledge the unreality of his situation that he had erstwhile forgotten. "There was a lot I still wanted to ask, you know," Luigi grunted at him. "But you had to go and get us kicked out."

"You got us kicked out," Pit snapped. "There was a reason I told you I wasn't going up there." He thought for a moment. "But if there's still more you want to know, there are ways we can find out. What else would you have asked?"

He stopped abruptly to stare at him and wait for a response. Luigi balked. The most pressing question on his mind was one that he was terrified of asking. He refused to put it to Pit. He wasn't sure he wanted the answer. But his mind had frozen, and he could not think of a suitable question to ask in its place.

The silence dragged out. Pit cocked his head. Luigi fumbled with his hands and looked around, desperately scraping for ideas. "I, uh…well…"

Pit shook a dusting of snow from his wings again, and Luigi finally pulled together a facsimile question: "I wanted to know what the last console was!"

The deafening silence from his companion was plenty to assure Luigi that he did not for one instant believe that had been his actual question. "The last console," Pit repeated.

Luigi shrugged. "Just to, you know. See how far we got?"

For a long moment, Pit just stared at him, and Luigi was terrified, thinking that he would demand the truth. But eventually he shrugged and said, "I suppose we'd better pay a visit to that consignment shop your friend from the toy store mentioned."

"I never told you about that!" Luigi snapped, but Pit just grinned at him, and Luigi realized that he didn't have to have told him. Pit had probably written the toy store owner's dialogue himself.

Pit didn't seem to be in any terrible hurry to get there. Rather than running like he had earlier, he led Luigi at the rate of a mere plod. He was also silent. Luigi wished he would talk to him. It was too difficult trying to convince himself that the other-Nintendo they had just left wasn't actually real.

That of course meant that Pit had never abandoned them, like program-Iwata had vengefully claimed. He hadn't abandoned them, because they weren't real. So-called Super Mario had not been a colossal failure because it hadn't existed. These and other things Luigi kept repeating to himself, over and over again. His new greatest terror was forgetting the falseness of the program and mistaking it for reality.

Despite all this, he could not keep a creeping doubt at bay, and as they walked along the streets and through the snow, Luigi wondered just how terribly realistic it was to suppose that without him Nintendo would have been severely crippled. His instinct told him "not very."

There had been a time, however, long ago, when his brother had argued in a way hauntingly similar to Iwata's explanation. The first game Luigi had shared with Mario had been Mario Bros., and he put his absolute all into it. He wanted to do well. There is a certain dignity in ambition, a dignity in striving to perform honorably. And when his abilities had proven comparable to Mario's own, he'd felt truly proud. The truth was that he was very ambitious. He always had been. Mario was important to him, but he also wanted something more than to be a mere sidekick. He wanted to apply himself, to become something bigger. He worked harder.

Luigi had secretly hoped that his good work would earn him a larger role in Super Mario Bros., but to his dismay, the part he played in that game was more minor than his role in the predecessor. He was furious; it hadn't been as if his first performance had been sub-par. The game had flourished, and in no small part (he was willing to admit) because he had been in it. But they were still unwilling to let him be anything greater than Mario's skittish brother. There was no one else there to fill the part, but how much good could he possibly do in such a position?

"Heroes aren't terribly interesting on their own," was the response Mario had given him one afternoon when Luigi had finally voiced his resentment. "Nobody is, for that matter, but bear with me. I might be the figurehead, but I'm certainly not the only thing holding this franchise together. Being undersung doesn't make you unimportant."

He had, at long last, been eventually granted his own game in Luigi's Mansion. He had been delighted; or rather relieved; until he discovered what the intended theme of the game was. Yet again, he would be a coward. A mere sniveling, pathetic craven whose only mission was to save his better-loved brother and return him to his rightful place of lording over the rest of them.

It was more than disappointing. It was insulting. After years of dutifully performing behind his older brother, years of unwavering loyalty, it was like a slap in the face. That day was forever etched into his memory. He had never been the same afterwards. It was the day that he'd realized his only dream, to become more than what he was, had already died.

Perhaps program-Iwata was not being so farfetched when he said that avatars were too ambitious to be truly happy in positions of little prestige. Luigi had challenged him, adamantly even, but Iwata's words echoed back to him as being the story of his very life. It occurred to him indistinctly, and accompanied by a subtle pang of nausea, that his current misery might have been constructed from little more than his own selfishness...

There was suddenly a huge rush of sound. Luigi stopped abruptly and blinked upwards, stupefied, as the Hanshin Expressway roared above them. Pit was several feet ahead of him, and he stopped as well. The feathers on his wings etched short scratches into the fresh snow with an eerie grace. He squinted back at him. "Is everything alright, Luigi?"

Luigi nodded gruffly. Pit heaved a sigh. "It's just around the corner up here. Don't fail on me yet."

Despite the toy store's owner's claims to the contrary, the consignment shop they found did not seem particularly classy. It was small and glum and had dirty windows. Luigi was afraid to go inside, especially alone, but he had a nasty feeling that that was exactly what Pit was about to ask him to do. He patted nervously at his pants, looking for the wad of money Pit had given him earlier, but embarrassingly, it seemed to have vanished.

Pit cocked his head at him. "Misato must've forgotten to program your inventory." He sighed and shook his head. "Well, it's not as if it matters. The money's not real either."

He glanced at him up and down, and asked gently, "Would you like me to come with you this time?" Luigi's face reddened as he realized he must have looked as nervous as he felt, but Pit didn't give him a chance to try and get out of it. He took him firmly by the wrist and pushed open the door.

A bell jingled overhead, but that was the only movement in the building. Dusty shelves were piled with dusty merchandise. Behind the counter there was no one to be found. Luigi looked questioningly at Pit, but he was avoiding his gaze.

"Odd," he said, voice completely absent of surprise. "If he wasn't going to be here, why leave the door unlocked?"

"Maybe he forgot," said Luigi, trailing a sidelong look at a glass display case filled with tarnished jewelry.

Pit seemed unconvinced by that possibility. Silent as a cat, he leapt on top of the counter and began poking around for clues. Luigi didn't share his apparent easy feeling with the place, and he took a step backwards, wringing his hands.

"Are you sure you ought to be doing that, Pit?"

"Relax. It's not like I'm trying to steal something. I'm just figuring out where the guy is." He poked his head up suddenly, a pamphlet pinched in his fingers. "Bingo!"

"What's that?"

"A menu. I think our friend's gone next door to pick up his lunch."

It was the noodle shop the man from the toy store had mentioned in passing. The interior was poorly lit, and hazy from cigarette smoke. Given the deserted state of the streets outside, it was surprisingly busy. Several people were seated around, engaged in quiet conversation and stirring their lunches absently. It seemed, actually, refreshingly calm and normal. It seemed that way, rather, aside from the brouhaha behind the counter.

A frazzled-looking man was leaned there, tapping both his toe against the floor and his fingers against the tile. He kept glaring at his watch and growling something to the woman at the register, who was looking more and more distraught and kept lobbing all manner of threats and curses towards the backroom. Luigi's first instinct was to stay back and wait for the bedlam to die down, but Pit walked right up to them, so he grimaced and followed.

"Excuse me," he said brightly to the red-faced, impatient man. The man looked down at Pit with an expression normally reserved for people who commented about his mother's bulldog-jaw and myriad warts. If Pit was off-put, he did a great job of hiding it. "Are you by any chance the man who owns the consignment shop next door?"

"I don't see how that's any business of yours," the man grunted in reply.

"Well, it's not, of course," Pit continued. "But I wanted to tell you that you left the door unlocked and the register unattended."

The man grit his teeth and hissed back at him in undertone: "I know that. I wasn't expecting this would take so long."

"My friend and I had a few questions for you anyway, once you return," Pit said, nodding towards Luigi, who was loitering several feet away and trying to remain anonymous. "Let us do a favor for you. Return to your store, and we'll pick up your order for you once it's ready."

It was obvious that the man was dubious of this proposal. He chewed his lip in frustration, but after casting one more look towards the cashier, who shrugged apologetically, he spat, "Fine! We'll do that, then!" and stormed away before they could say anything else.

Not a second after the door had closed behind him however, there was a huge commotion in the kitchen; the sound of a few pans hitting the floor. Glasses on the counter rattled. The cashier rubbed her temples exasperatedly. Then came hurried shouts of, "It's ready! It's ready!"

That voice. Luigi felt his blood run cold. Instinctively he tried to step further backwards, but it was as if Pit had already realized what was happening. He caught him by the wrist and held him fast.

A man burst through the kitchen door, hastily clutching a brown paper bag against his chest. The cashier snatched it from him and dropped it onto the counter. "That was Gomo!" she growled. "Gomo! A regular! He's been coming here for years, and you frustrate even him! You're impossible!"

The man only sighed, and as he turned away from her to wipe his sleeve against his brow, Pit and Luigi were able to look clearly into the unmistakable face of Shigeru Miyamoto.