A/N: You will not BELIEVE HOW AGGRAVATING IT IS TO EDIT ON A PHONE. My internet crashed JUST as I finished editing this and was about to post it. I then proceeded to use a phone until I commandeered my cousin's laptop.

Chapter 28:

"She's still in critical condition, I'm afraid." The doctor sat down on his stool and placed the folder on his desk and began flipping through the several test results, not even glancing at Yoshi and Accelerator. Yomi had come along in the beginning, but after Rei had been admitted to the hospital, Yomi headed home because they had left Last Order asleep and alone at home, to Accelerator's anger. The doctor turned on the panel to his side and pulled out two scans to place on it. "Her skull took quite a blow when the- support beam, you said?- made contact. She suffered some brain damage as well. It's hard to say how it will affect her, but…" He looked at them, trying to show compassion but utterly failing, "I'm afraid…It's permanent damage. If she ever wakes up, she won't quite be the same."

"Oh dear…" Yoshi whispered. "And there is no way to predict when she's going to wake up?"

The doctor shook his head. "Comas are far from predictable, even with our advancements in medicine. We can detect that there is a lot of activity going on in her brain, though. It's almost as if she is going through daily life and her mind is reacting to it, normally, but she just can't wake up. Although…we have picked up some rather intense activity at times. The simplest way to describe it is that she seems to be dreaming something. When the dream is over, there is a good chance she will wake up."

"That's terrible. I guess all we can do for now is wait." Yoshi took a passing glance at Accelerator, who although didn't seem bored, wasn't sure what to look at in this plain white room when all it had were an apathetic doctor and a scientist who wasn't exactly the best with expressing her emotions either.

"It is a difficult situation, I realize. There isn't much else you can do now but hope for the best. She has received a few blood transfusions already to stabilize herself- she really did lose a near-fatal amount of it. We have also started accelerating her wound recovery, but we simply can't wake her up. Now, I must be going." He stood up. "Someone else will be coming in to talk about the payment and how it'll have to be if you want to visit her." The doctor left as he came.

"That doctor wasn't very hospitable." Yoshi looked at Accelerator. "But it's okay, I made a call."

"To whom?" Accelerator asked, then almost as soon as the words came out he realized who she was talking about. "You don't mean…"

"Good day!" A new doctor walked into the room. He had a frog-like face but his warm smile made him look very friendly. He sat down in the same stool. "Accelerator, Yoshikawa-san." He nodded at them separately. "I take it you met with Genji-san."

"The past doctor? He wasn't that great. Why are you here again?" Accelerator was the first to say something.

"How rude, Accelerator, I called him because I had a feeling Rei-chan would need the best medical attention. Sensei here is the best."

"Now now, you're too kind, Yoshikawa-san. But yes, I looked into the girl's case last night and earlier today. Fear not, I'd bet that she'll wake up soon."

"Ahh, that's good news, isn't it, Acclerator?" Yoshi gave a sigh of relief and glanced at him, hoping he would react in some way.

"Do you have an idea of when, though?" Accelerator ignored Yoshi's question. She's been asleep for 3 days."

"Hmmm...How should I put it. I think Ryuuzaki-chan isn't in one unlike how Genji-san put it. I think she's just unconscious and will wake up in due time. She's most certainly not brain-dead, like he must have also said, the brain scans show almost normal to an above average amount of activity. When you are in a coma, the brain barely manages to meet the par. Additionally, what I found interesting though was this area…" He pointed to a part of one of the brain scans on the lighted panel. "This involves long term memories. In every single one of these scans that area has constantly had an extreme amount of activity, well above average. In the phone call, Yoshikawa-san, you said she had amnesia during the duration you two knew each other. My hypothesis is that she's currently asleep and is remembering everything and that she'll wake up when she has remembered everything."

"Is…Is that even possible in science?" Accelerator looked at him.

The doctor smiled faintly. "I've seen crazier things happen. However…there is the matter of her brain damage, which she did indeed incur. Whenever she wakes up, something is going to be different than before. I can't quite predict what she would have trouble with, but I suspect, due to the injuries, her personal reality will be affected. Thus, it's possible she will drop a level in her vector change ability. That is probably the best-case scenario."

"She would again be back to level 4? After all that hard work she has accomplished?" Yoshikawa gasped.

"It would terrible if it happened, I see so much promise in this girl." He had a grim look on his face. "But, keep in mind, the brain is a very complicated machine. Even if one area shows damage, the whole brain is connected and the problems could actually arise in another location. The best thing to do is to take what I have said with a grain of salt and keep hope."

"Any chance of any sort of physical or ESPer therapy?" Yoshikawa questioned further.

"It's possible. Depends on what ends up being affected, though. If ESPer therapy is needed, I'm thinking that I will temporarily connect her to the sisters and Accelerator. It will only be for a short time, and I don't think your powers will diminish in any way, Accelerator."

"…She told me that her ability isn't 'Vector Change'." Accelerator looked down. He didn't quite want to meet eyes with the man who had also helped him with his vrain damage at one point. He had already told Yoshikawa and Yomikawa this story, but he wasn't sure if the doctor had heard it. "She said she was actually able to give herself someone's ability by 'tagging' their AIM field. It makes sense to connect her to others. It could help."

The doctor nodded. "Hmm, yes. That is what I was thinking when Yoshikawa-san was talking to me on the phone. He stopped talking to look at the girl's photo on the file. "So this is that girl…"

"Eh? You know about her?" Accelerator asked.

"Yes, I heard of all the stories. But soon no one heard about her on the news. Apparently someone heard one of the higher-ups saying that she had died and her body was never found to be used in the name of science. No one ever disclosed the cause. Those above us on the food chain told us about her death, so when the news pulled all stories of her, all the people with the power to do something were hushed and never tried to contact her or her family again. It's not like they could have responded anyway, if all of them were dead."

" 'All of them were dead?' You mean…" Accelerator trailed off.

"Yes, all of her family members died in the attempt that tried to kill her. None of them- even the grandfather would have had some more years according to statistics- were even close to a dying age and none of them had any ailments. Their house got burned down to boot. It sounds like some sort of an inside job, if you ask me. A few mad scientists even tried to use the genetics from the mother and father in an attempt to recreate the girl, but the chances of the same kid being born to a couple are near zero, so of course they failed."

"…." He didn't know how to respond to that. Even this girl was once targeted by the science side of Academy City.

"That's…that's pretty terrible. I never realized that Rei-chan had such a hard life." Yoshi murmured.

"In fact, that's not even her real name! It's….The name she currently is using is the name of a girl her age who died in this same incident. This girl's whole family also died in this incident, too, and for reasons I don't know of. Everyone was hoping to capture Rei-chan since she and her parents refused any sort of communication with them, but everything just ended with a really bad taste in everyone's mouths and even other civilians were drawn into it and killed... But when you check the student database, the girl doesn't exist anymore but this one does." He tapped his finger on the file. "And even then sometimes I see things get moved around and changed. Someone has been tampering with the storage of info for years. Most likely to protect this girl."

"Now that you know that she's alive, will you….?" Accelerator insinuated that the doctor would alert the scientific community to Ryuuzaki being alive.

The doctor closed his eyes and smiled, shaking his head. "I'm a doctor. We are here to care for the patients. I have a set of ethics that come before Academy City and its sometimes selfish desires for progress. This girl has enough problems as it is, I will not create more. Now, before I leave, would you like to see her?" He gestured to the door as if he already knew the answer. "Come." He said.

人

Rei was dressed in a pink hospital gown. Her arms and chest had a variety of different colored wires splayed from her. A curved and broad tempered glass arc was raised above her forehead. On the arc were constantly changing numbers and vitals that Accelerator didn't understand. And, of course, Rei had to have an oxygen mask.

"Her face is usually calm like it is now, but sometimes the nurses catch her face grimacing a little every so often. Like she's having a nightmare. Which, given her history, might very well be true." The doctor explained. "I'll give you all some time alone. Visiting hours don't end until the night, so take your time." He left and the two took their seats on the love seat on the left-hand side of the hospital bed with the window letting light in behind them. It was a bright day, but alas Rei would never see any of that light.

"She looks so…peaceful right now." Minutes passed in silence before Yoshi could muster up something to say.

"You have a very peaceful face when you sleep. People's true nature shows when they sleep." Accelerator remembered a snippet of one of the first conversations he had with Last Order. He had just woken up and was surprised the brat had stayed overnight in his ramshackle of a home. Rei's face was certainly peaceful right now, so the two were innocent beings, right? Wrong. Accelerator knew that neither of them were innocent anymore, and both were far from achieving peace. Both held darkness that festered in the cracks of their broken hearts. Of course, their respective situations should not be compared by asking "Which is worst?" However, whereas Accelerator still felt a heavy heart and was learning to live with it, letting his loved ones take some of the his pain away, Rei was in the stage of getting her heart broken over and over again. Not only that, no one was able to reach Rei and heal. When she woke up, it would be too late. The damage would have already been done.

There was a time where I was alone, too.

人

Later that day, Yomi and Last Order came. Last Order was despondent as she held the side of the bed, frowning and waiting for Rei to say something. All of them had little to say. Yomi had tried to hold a conversation with her on what she did at work the other day and how Last Order accidentally spilled orange juice on Accelerator's bed, but after she said those she had nothing more to say in this one-way conversation.

"We should go have lunch now, then I have to go to work. Accelerator, you and Last Order can visit her later today if you want." Yomi said and then led them all out. As they all filed out of the room, Accelerator was the last one in line. He took a look back at her "sleeping" face.

Ne, Accelerator-sensei,

I can't be with you right now.

I don't think I'll be gone for long, though. In fact I think I'll be returning really soon.

Knowing my past now, I can be even more grateful for the new little piece of life you have given me.

I can only hope I was a fraction of how special you are to me in your eyes,

So please…Please let me be...

Accelerator almost thought the sunlight was playing tricks on his eyes when he saw hers flutter open.

Sensei?