"Family means too much, friends are too valuable, and life is to short to put-off sharing with people how much they really mean to you, and how much their happiness is all that you aim for in life."

"G-Get off of me!" Alex screamed, her entire body aching in protest. She felt like she was going to break into a million pieces, and as she screamed it tore at her throat, her lungs, and her chest. It felt like someone was trying to claw their way out from inside of her. "I-I won't let you do this-!" Alex was cut off harshly from an abrupt cough, blood spurting out of her mouth thickly and down her chin. It trailed down her neck and onto her clothes, staining the almost white fabric. Alex collapsed against the couch, unable to move as her body was just so weak.

She was so tired... she just wanted to sleep and never wake up. Why couldn't she just rest in peace? Why does Akari insist on doing this...?

Kyoya... Stop crying. Smile. I want to see your smile. She didn't want to die. She didn't want to leave everyone and seep into the darkness. She didn't want to die alone... but everyone dies alone, no matter what the circumstance is. It's just a matter of whether or not you die happy. And Alex was happy. But it didn't mean she wanted to die like this... she wanted to be old and have a family. She wanted to have grandchildren and hold her husband's warm hand... but Kyoya was going to have to move on. She doubted it would have even worked much longer, what with their differences... she wasn't an actual Hitachiin. His dad probably wouldn't have let them stay together, even if she were healthy. I don't want to go, but...

"I refuse to let you kill yourself for me!" Alex used what strength she could muster and screamed, reaching her hands up and grabbing Akari's chin, lifting her head up and trying to push her back. "Get-Get back-blargh!" She gargled up more blood and hacked, turning her head away and attempting to spit it all out as she kicked weakly at the girl holding her down. "N-No-!" She broke out into more coughs.

"I can only do this while your heart's still beating!" Akari cried, tears trickling down her cheeks. She had one hand wrapped around Alex's throat and the other pressed against her chest. "E-Equivalent Exchange!"

"N-No!" Alex's eyes stung painfully and she resorted to hitting Akari, trying to hurt her to make her get off. "L-Let go! Don't do it! What about-" Their names. What were their names again? She doesn't remember her old friends' names... Horror pierced Alex like a knife, sending her into shock. I don't remember their names... the people I used to care so much for- why have I forgotten them?

"You don't remember because you belong here! You have so many people who love you, Alex! You can't just leave them behind like this!"

"B-But I-" I don't want you to kill yourself for me.

She could hear the Host Club members screaming her name, Misuzu dialing a number frantically while Tamaki took the initiative to call Hikaru on his cell. He never answered. "Just let me save you!" Alex's hold on Akari's face slipped, and she tried to yell again but Akari quickly muffled her by leaning down and pressing her lips against hers. Alex's eyes went wide.

Blue electricity crackled around them suddenly, and you could hear the Hosts in the back gasping or crying out in shock and/or terror.

Akari was becoming less transparent; she was now a solid human being in the same dimension. Everyone could see her. And what's more... as Alex thrashed and cried, Akari keeping her screams muffled, her sickly skin was becoming healthier. The bags under her eyes were vanishing, her sunken cheeks filling. She began to look healthier, and less like a starved child who would have been so easily snapped in two. Her lifeless eyes became brighter, and less like she was on the brink of death.

But as that happened... Akari took a turn for the worse. She grew so pale, visibly loosing a lot of weight, her skin now damp and cold as ice. Her cheeks begun to to get sunken and started to resemble that of a corpse-just like Alex had been.

Because Akari had become so weak, Alex was finally able to push her away, screaming at her. "What the hell did I say!? I just-I just said not too!" Tears started falling uncontrollably and she pushed herself up, crawling and kneeling beside Akari's fallen form. Glaring at the girl as she lifted her up off the ground and onto her lap, she yelled, "Who-Who ever said you could die for me, damn it!? I-I said "no"! You should listen to me when I say "no"! I-I said no for my arm, I-I said no for the transaction between gates, I said no for saving me!"

Alex had snapped. She clinging to Akari by this point, rocking her back-and-forth. "I-I said no! Give it back! Give it all back! I'm the one who's supposed to die! G-Give me back the pain!" No one else in the room spoke a word, unable to process what was going on in front of their eyes. They just watched.

The rain had stopped falling.

"No one told you to save me, no one gave you any right to do that! S-So just give it all back!" She could watch and cry as Akari bubbled up blood. "Y-You shouldn't even be here! It-It's against the rules!"

Akari tried to laugh at that, whimpering, "Y-You don't know the rules... I-I spent my whole life with Truth... We-We're two different b-bodies and people entirely, Alex. W-We may be what that other person is... in another world, but... we-we can exist in the same space... He just likes to switch us out for fun."

"I don't give a damn about him! Truth can go die!"

"T-Truth is God, Alex... you can't kill God."

"He is no god! Now-Now just shut up and give it all back!" Akari smiled at that and Alex inhaled sharply, feeling her heart sink into her stomach. It felt like a knife slashed across her chest. "It's not fair... Why? Why do you keep doing this? Why do you keep hurting yourself for me!?" There was no reason for it. Alex was just some random girl. Alex wasn't important. She... She was just a girl taken from her world, thrown into a show she used to watch when she was bored. Everyone she knew was actually real, written about and turned into entertainment because Truth is a cold bastard who likes to screw with peoples lives. Alex was just a girl... who became a Hostess.

That's all she was. A Hostess. She invaded upon their world and forced herself into being a part of it. She may have had little to no choice, but she kept going on... she dealt with it. She dealt with all this madness that was thrust upon her and now...

Someone was giving their life for her, all because of... what? She "saved" her? Alex did nothing of that sort. That was all Truth's doing.

"Alex..." Akari grabbed onto Alex's arm, trying to sit up. She let out a sound of pain and flinched, wheezing. "I-I just... I lied. Again."

"A-About what?" She demanded, voice shaking. Akari laughed a little at that, despite the intense amount of pain it brought upon her. Her vision was getting hazy. Her skull felt like it was about to break and shatter into a billion pieces. But she didn't regret it. She didn't regret anything she did.

"You... haven't figured it out yet? I-I thought you liked puzzles..."

"I-I do! I do like puzzles! But that doesn't mean that-"

"Alex..." The girl clamped her mouth shut in response, choking back a sob.

"Y-Yeah?"

Akari's breathing slowed. Her eyes became misty. They were beginning to cloud over... losing their life. "I... the reason I lied... is because I wanted to protect you. I wanted to keep... you safe."

"Safe? Safe from what!?"

"H-Harm..." She breathed, her grip on Alex's sleeve loosened just a bit before tightening in a last attempt. "I... I wanted to say... the first time I spoke to you, I felt... happy. I'm glad it was you, Alex... b-because... I just..."

"Y-Yeah? Come on, Akari; what is it?"

Akari hesitated, looking over Alex's shoulder at the man who mattered most in her's life. Instead of saying what she was going to originally, Akari changed her mind and relaxed. She smiled, closing her eyes. "I just... want you to be happy... okay? Promise me... that you won't... forget..." Her hold on Alex loosened and her body went completely limp. She was no longer breathing.

"Yeah?" Alex asked, shaking her a little. "A-Akari? Promise you what? Come on, answer me! Promise not to forget what!? What am I supposed to promise not to forget!? Akari!" Alex couldn't breathe. It was all happening too fast. "No, no, no; wake up already! Don't you dare! Don't you dare; just-just wake... up..." She trailed off, going completely silent as she sat there numb from shock. Akari is... dead. She's dead.

What was Akari going to tell her...?

What was Alex supposed to promise her? To not forget what? But that made no sense. It had to be something else. Alex didn't...

It was safe to say that Kyoya was the only one who knew the best out of the outsiders what was going on. Stepping forward and knelt down and embraced Alex from behind, despite still being in shock over what had just happened.

"She's dead..." Alex told him blankly, not sure how else to react. Akari was dead... "I don't know. Why did she just..." She looked at Kyoya with wide eyes, trembling. "Why-Why did she do that!? I-I said no and she still-she still..." She started to cry all over again, unable to stop the overflowing tears. The body in her arms was so cold... so thin and weak... she didn't need to do that. Alex was supposed to die. Akari shouldn't have gone and taken her sickness from her. "She-She still..." Alex felt someone pull Akari from her arms, the person setting the girl on the couch.

It was Mori.

"Hikaru?" Tamaki's voice rang out, slight clinical from shock. "Y-Yeah... It's Alex; she's...better now. W-Way better... I-I just..." He swallowed thickly, holding back his own tears after seeing the scene before him. "I can't explain just-just come as quickly as you can. A-Akiko's with you, right? G-Good... come back as soon as you can." He hung up and placed the phone in pocket, before looking down at Haruhi.

"What the hell..." She whispered, face still pale from the storm earlier. "What the hell just happened!?"

Kyoya's glasses glared over and he clung to Alex tightly, saying loud enough for everyone to hear him, "I'll explain later, just... don't worry about it right now. Call an ambulance, and then a funeral parlor. Tamaki... can you do that?"

Tamaki was shaken up, but managed a nod. He said, "Y-yeah... sure. Uh, M-Misuzu-Chii, can-can you make something for Alex? I-I can only imagine how hungry she is after being in that..." He swallowed and blinked a couple times, still at a loss of what happened. How had a girl appeared out of thin air? What was that blue electricity surrounding them? Just... Just how had their conditions swapped?

Nothing made any sense.

Misuzu was stunned for a moment, not really listening, before he snapped out of it and registered what Tamaki said. "Y-Yes, of course! E-Excuse me..." He quickly departed the room.

"K-Kyoya," Fuyumi began, taking a step forward and extending a hand. "Do you know something about those two that we don't?"

Kyoya was silent for a long time. When he spoke, he said solemnly, "Just know... that the daughter of the Ayuzawa that was said missing eleven years ago... is now found."

Fuyumi looked stunned. She began to say his name, but Kyoya didn't listen.

He ignored her, lifting up Alex and carrying her out of the room. Kaoru was about to chase after them, but paused when he remembered Akari. He turned to look at the deceased child, who was merely no more than fifteen. A girl too young to die. A girl who was just a few months younger than him.

She really did truly resemble his sister... Alex. But... there was just the slightest bit of difference that separated them. If she wasn't dead and was alive, just like she had been minutes before, she and Alex could have passed off for twins. They would have been just like he and his brother, but... Kaoru knew their story was far more complicated and twisted.

And as he thought about it, he caught sight of the scar on her jawline and forehead. That peaked his attention. Leaning forward he brushed the hair out of her face, despite being completely unnerved that he was touching a corpse, and looked her left arm which was covered with scars.

Scars identical to Alex's.

His eyes widened. If Akari and Alex look alike, then that should be it. No person has the same scars as another. Even Hikaru and I have our differences in features. This girl has more Japanese features compared to Alex's American face, but their build was almost completely the same, with a few differences. Akari's shoulders were narrow while Alex's are more broad, and Akari's nose was slightly pointier than Alex's. However, when it came to scars... they should never be the same. They could be close, but never the same.

Yet they were identical in shape, placement, and form.

There was something that Alex was hiding.

Mitsukuni suddenly spoke, voice suddenly deeper than what it usually is. Everyone else who was left in the room turned to look at him, stunned at his words but realizing he had a point. "It makes sense. I don't really know what's going on here, but... she did something to save Lexi-Chan, didn't she?" No one answered. "Remember her arm? It used to be unusable." Kaoru remembered the therapist they had working with her, but after a month or so she stopped going because her arm was magically better. How had he not noticed? "But now it's working perfectly, as if it hadn't been harmed in the first place."

The X-rays of her arm he found in her room one day. He hid them from Hikaru because he didn't understand what she had them for. It was just a normal arm X-Ray. Nothing appeared to be wrong... and that was the problem it now seemed.

"Alex..." Mitsukuni called her by her name fully for once, rather than the childish name he usually calls her. "Alex isn't from here."

Haruhi exclaimed, "But she's Japanese, isn't she? Sure she has American decent, but she was born here in Japan! She used to be my neighbor!"

Mitsukuni shook his head. "No... that was Akari. This is Alex. You didn't hear their voices?" Haruhi closed her mouth, stunned. She had actually, she just thought she was going crazy because Alex had merely been arguing with herself until a figure appeared out of thin air. But she didn't think he was talking about that. Akari's voice happened to be higher and softer in pitch. Alex's was just a tad deeper. "They're totally different people, Haruhi. And because of that, because they're not the same person, they can "exist in the same space". By "here" I don't mean Japan... a country. I mean... a different world. She's from a whole different dimension."

"But there's only one world!" Haruhi protested. Kaoru and Fuyumi were as silent as Mori, who was standing beside the couch Akari was laying on. Tamaki had left the room to call everyone Kyoya had instructed him too and to calm himself down. "You're not making any sense!"

"I don't really know the details either..." Mitsukuni admitted sorrowfully, shadows covering his face as he lowered his head. "But Kanazuki told me that she could see through some Black Magic that Alex isn't from this dimension. I think she said she came from the eighth world or something. But..." He lifted his head and tried for a cheerful smile, "I-I'm sure that Lexi-Chan and Kyo-Chan can explain everything!"

Kaoru felt his heart tighten painfully in his chest. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to be feeling about all this.

What scared him most of all... is that if Alex had been hiding something like this from them... then did she really even think of him as her brother? Did she really even care for him and Hikaru? For Kyoya? For everyone in the Host Club?

Kaoru was terrified. He had no idea anymore. Hikaru... Akiko... please hurry back.

"I... I don't know where to start," Alex admittedly quietly, fiddling with her hands as she looked down at her lap, unable to look at anyone. She felt so horrible. She felt shocked, numb, hurt, sad, relieved, alive... she was just a mess of emotions. So she did something she was good at and tried to bottle them all up. It's not something good nor healthy to do, but it was what she was going to have to do for the time being. "I... I honestly don't remember much about that day anymore."

Haruhi replied dryly, thoroughly peeved at everything that was happening, "How about from the beginning, Alex?" The girl flinched at the cold use of her name.

"I...I don't know. I was... It was my birthday, I remember that much." Everyone listened closely, gathered around the table in the kitchen. The second Hikaru and Akiko returned, they changed clothes and Kyoya made a temporary splint for Akiko.

It was safe to say the two teens didn't react well to the dead body, but the ambulance had yet to arrive so everyone decided to have Alex explain everything, despite the very recent events. She swallowed, looking up at Kyoya for a brief moment before flinching and lowering her head again. She already told him, so she had no reason to be scared, but... it hurt looking at him.

It was a nice hurt, but she knew that they really were going to have to stop this "thing" they had between them. She doubted his Dad would let them continue... after the events that happened. After making Kyoya go through so much pain... there was no way Yoshio was going to allow them.

He said himself that the only reason he let them go on is because she made him "learn" something "important". She didn't know exactly what that was, but she doubted that after this... after the funeral and after everyone goes back to their homes...

There was no way he was going to let them stay together.

Everything just hurts... being saved, greeting death and losing a friend, and this... he's so near and so close, yet so far away... and now she was on the brink of losing everyone. It was no doubt they were truly going to hate her now.

But then it would go back to how it should be, wouldn't it? Haruhi, Haruhi, Haruhi. The Protagonist. Although everyone is very much so real and flesh and blood in front of her... Alex was never meant to be here. Akiko shouldn't have gotten involved either. They were intruders. Invaders upon their land. It was never meant to be for them in the first place.

"I..." She inhaled deeply, thinking of how to start. After a few moments she began, ignoring the vegetable soup placed in front of her by Misuzu. "Well, I was visiting an old friend at the library, I think... N-No, wait, she was the librarian and she... gave me this book for my birthday. It was a manga. I was walking home, humming when I heard an old lady scream..."

Mitsukuni looked up at her, recognizing the story. "And you threw your book at the robber who was trying to take her purse, right!?" Alex finally looked up, a ghost of a smile on her face as she nodded.

"Yeah... that's right." She had told the story billions of times to the guests at the Host Club. Of course he would know. "I threw my book and it hit him in the head. He tried to shoot me, but missed and I backed out onto the street."

Hikaru and Kaoru looked at each other from the corner of their eyes. They remembered their chauffeur, the one with the frying pan, who had sworn he saw a flash of blue light. It was because of that light that he had hit the girl in the first place; he was blinded.

"I-I remember this flash of blue light and...there I was, rolling over the top of their limo," She pointed to the twins, "and taking a bullet for Kaoru. That blue light... that was Truth, a-a thing... well, you would call him God, I guess... he refers to himself as that; he looks like Slenderman though, only with your body shape. A-Anyway, that was Truth switching me out from my dimension... and into yours. He-He takes people... with special names, I guess, that have certain meanings. Or-Or maybe he can just see into your future, and decides if it's too boring and then throws you into another dimension to spice things up; I-I'm not really sure... I just know that when I woke up in the hospital... I wasn't home. I-I was in a different country, speaking a different language.

I-I'm really sorry for hiding this from you, but... you guys wouldn't have believed me anyway. Girl from a d-different dimension? C-Come on... you would have stuck me in an asylum." No one could protest, as they knew she spoke the truth. "I just... After Hikaru and Kaoru picked me up and made me with live with them, I just tried to fit in... but I guess wearing a three-sizes-too-big uniform kinda contradicts that, huh?" She chuckled bitterly, remembering how she always stole Hikaru's uniform. "I... I don't know if it was coincidence or if Truth was just being a sick jerk, but I-I'm really glad I got to meet you all.

A-Another reason I didn't tell you guys is because I didn't-I didn't want you to hate me..." The silence around the table only grew thicker. Everyone knew of that fear of hers. "A-And... my arm..." She held out her left arm, blinking a couple times as her eyes started to sting. Akari's image flashed through her head. "She... I... I didn't want this. I didn't want any of this. I-I didn't want her to damage her nerves in her arm to fix mine; I-I didn't want her to... to do this! I didn't want any of this! I-!" She pulled her arm back and clamped a hand over her mouth, choking back a sob. "I... I didn't want... I didn't want her to die..." Her voice went quiet.

"But it's not like what I want matters... you guys all hate me now, anyway... who would ever like someone who lied about something this big to them?" She sniffled and swallowed the lump in her throat, smiling at them with pained eyes. "B-But... I-I did always say I was already "dead", right? I-I told you I was taken from my family... I-I just... left out the part of being switched with-with..." It hurt so badly. Alex swallowed thickly, "Akari. It's understandable if you guys hate me now. I don't blame you."

No one was able to speak or make a reply, as sirens wailing loudly outside interrupted what continuation of the conversation could be had.

"Why does it always rain the hardest...on those who deserve the sun?"

Ah, more confusion. Okay, I explained the "Other Half" thing in a paragraph like this before... Your "Other Half" may be you in a different dimension, but it is merely a VERSION of you, of what you "MIGHT BE" there. They are two completely totally different people. Like-Like think of twins, only unrelated at all, with subtle or very-out-there differences in personality, and-or body shape but still completely able to be confused with the other. They can exist in the same space (Dimension) but Truth switches them out to see how they would fare and to screw with the events that were originally to happen. You get it? Yay, nay?

An imaginary hug from Kyoya to TheNightstriker for guessing correctly that Akari would sacrifice herself.