Notes:

Chapter Title: Hakanaku mo Towa no Kanashi (儚くも永久のカナシ lit. A Love Fleeting Yet Everlasting) - UVERworld

(Translation Note: "Kanashi" in this song's title was intentionally rendered in katakana in order for it to have a double meaning. 悲し/哀し and 愛し are all pronounced "kanashi" and translate to "sorrow" and "love" respectively. I chose to use "love" as its translation here because to me, it denotes something that is so dear that it is incredibly sad.)

"In the outskirts of Tokyo, on a clear night, it's possible to look up at the sky and count the stars. For some reason, the first time I saw it for myself, the sight made me feel not nostalgic, but pessimistic.

Humans are a funny species, are we not? We spend our entire lives thinking that we are perhaps the most important species to ever walk the face of the earth.

But space is boundless. Brilliant points of light scatter the horizon as far as the eye can see, as though trying to define the boundless universe. Who—or what—is to say that one day, someone, somewhere, does not look back on us as a species and wonder… why would we choose to destroy ourselves?" —Toujou Nozomi

Nozomi took the radio set encased in the plastic evidence bag from one of her attendants. She inspected it carefully, noting the dried blood still present on the transponder's casing, before putting it back down on her table, looking up underneath her bangs at Kouchou. "So… what did we find?"

Kouchou fingered the plastic bag. "Izayoi was definitely using this to communicate that night. The tech specialists from the police department swept his entire building, and it's as Ayase Eli reported—he didn't communicate at all using his own network, or Tokyo's public one." The expression on his face darkened. "He must've been using this to orchestrate his entire escapade."

What was left unsaid between them was the fact that in the end, it hadn't mattered how much effort Izayoi had put into his escape. She remembered the conversation that the businessman had had in the car over the radio.

I thought that putting this much effort into making sure he escaped meant that they would've wanted to keep him alive. I was wrong. She breathed in through her nose slowly before letting it out. She had underestimated the people she thought she'd been dealing with. If Tenjoin Ryosuke was truly desperate enough to start buying out businessmen in her district to accomplish his own goals, then it had been a poor oversight on her part.

Somehow, though, Nozomi didn't think Tenjoin had the discretion in him to hire assassins and political opponents. That simply wasn't his style; Tenjoin liked to operate in the open and he certainly wasn't afraid to flaunt his particular method of intimidation. Blatantly threatening her in her own conference room was him through and through—tiptoeing around her and trying to topple her by picking off strategic people in her district wasn't.

"Is there anything else?" she asked.

"There is, actually," Kouchou replied, removing a small, black envelope from the inside of his suit jacket. "I intercepted this from the media yesterday afternoon during your meeting because they wanted to release it to the public." He scowled a little at the thought. "It took some convincing on my part before they were willing to hand it to me."

Nozomi took the small envelope from him, opening it and shaking out its contents to find an ordinary OSD inside, along with a photograph. "What is this?"

Kouchou placed his hands behind his back. "This is footage from the evening of Izayoi's death. It appears that one of the reporters arriving by helicopter was running late, so they turned on the external filming while they were still on the way. Supposedly, they caught the sniper who shot at the car on film."

She raised an eyebrow at him delicately. "Have you watched it?"

Her security chief nodded. "I have, but the quality of the film isn't as clear as I would've liked it to be." She handed the OSD to him as he plugged it into the large screen of her conference room, and turned it on. For a moment, there were only sparks across the screen as the video clip loaded, before familiar silhouettes of dark skyscrapers began to pop up in front of her. Nozomi realized that she was looking at Izayoi's downtown office building from several blocks away.

Kouchou hit play on the video, slowing the frames down to a quarter of what they should've been at as the clip continued. The moment a flat rooftop came into view, he hit pause. He pointed at a dark figure that she would've otherwise missed crouched behind a water tank. "There."

Getting up from her chair, she made her way over to the screen in front of her to take a closer look at the paused image. Now that Kouchou had pointed it out, she could indeed make out the dark outline of what looked like a man very clearly flattened on the rooftop of the building behind a large rifle. She pressed a slender finger to where the rifle was pointing, sending millions of tiny rainbow waves to ripple across the surface of the screen. "Have we looked into the building he was shooting from?"

"Yes, Toujou-sama," Kouchou replied. "It's residential. I've looked into all the residents that live there, and it appears that most of them were home when this was filmed. While there is a possibility that he's one of the residents, I think the chances of that are rather small given that that would make it almost too easy to find him."

"Agreed," she murmured, still staring at the frozen image of the man on the rooftop.

"In any case," Kouchou told her, "I tried to get the image of him lightened and enhanced. I just got the photo back from my lab at the police department." He walked over to where she had left it on the tabletop and picked it up to hand to her. "Though it's not very clear either."

Nozomi inspected the photograph, holding it up to the artificial light coming from above them. Now that the image was less grainy, she could see that the sniper had not been wearing a helmet. He had light silver hair tied back in a long ponytail, and he was wearing what looked like a military grade visor to shield his vision from glare.

"Have we tried matching him with anyone in Tokyo's database?" she inquired.

"I have," Kouchou responded. "I ran him through the new, city-wide program for all citizens that we implemented last year. There weren't any hits above the normal two hundred. It would have had to be significantly above that for it to be considered a match. He could be from the outer districts, I suppose, but if he was from the outer districts, where would he have had the money to get a rifle and visor like that?"

Nozomi bit down slightly on the bottom of her lip, thinking. The registry for all of Tokyo's citizens had been Fujiwara's idea—he had argued that every other district in the country had one, and it would only make sense for Tokyo to do the same. It had finally been implemented late last year after numerous heated debates between various political parties on the subject, and while she had originally been against it, protesting that acquiring a standard photograph of each citizen to be added to a common database was a breach of privacy, she had to admit that in their current crisis, it had finally come of actual use.

Turning around to face him, she voiced aloud the question that she was sure both of them were thinking. "What about the other districts?"

Kouchou gave her an interesting look. "I thought about that, but I don't have access to their databases." He caught her eye in a significant expression. "Do you want to risk it?"

She paused, not liking the small twinge of unease at the thought. But… I have no choice. This has become too big for me to ignore, even if I wanted to. She resisted the temptation to clench her gloved hand into a fist. I've had people who protested my leadership of this district before, but never like this.

Hiding her sense of apprehension from the security chief, she looked back at him as she walked over to the window on the pretense of looking at the sunny early August weather outside, giving him a small smile. "I think you know what the answer to that question is."

Eli rubbed the bare skin of her arms as she watched her younger sister turn on the lamp in the corner. Its flickering, intermittent quality reminded her that she was no longer in Tokyo—at least, not in the sense of the city that she had been born and raised in. I forgot. No one maintains the electricity lines out here anymore. It was funny how her mind could focus on such a mundane fact when there were perhaps a hundred more meaningful things she could be thinking about instead.

"Sorry," Alisa apologized. "This probably isn't what you're used to." Her sister sat down on a ragged chair that had clearly seen better days, just like every other piece of furniture in the small, run-down basement apartment that had once belonged to someone who was no longer around to reclaim their home.

She leaned back against the table behind her, sitting on its edge and trying to use the motion to hide the raw edge of emotion grating against the surface of her sternum. "It doesn't matter," she replied quietly.

Silence closed around them, mostly because she felt afraid to bridge the gap between them. Eli found that she was unable to completely meet her sister's eyes, and Alisa looked as awkward as she felt. For the umpteenth time, she cursed herself for being such a coward, but having the courage to face her weak side had never been something she'd been good at.

Alisa broke the silence first, folding her arms over her chest and cocking her head to one side. "You're not scared I'm going to infect you, or something?"

The question drew a hollow chuckle to her lips, though laughing was the last thing Eli felt like doing at the moment. "No."

Her fingernails dug into her skin. If she could dig deep enough, she could tear out her guilt and hopelessness at the situation that she was currently in—a disguised, fragile miracle within circumstances that she would've given anything to be able to change, even if it had just been one thing.

"How did you find me?" The question was banal, but there was nothing else that she could talk about without feeling the gravity of her emotions pressing down on her chest.

"Oh. To be completely honest," Alisa admitted softly, "I've been watching Umi-san for years. She often passes by where I spend the day on the way to the outer fence, though… I've never worked up the guts to approach her. She usually visits one shop in particular." There was a pause. "After last time, I didn't know how else to reach you. So I went there, and hoped that whoever owned it was a good enough friend with Umi-san to be able to tell me your number." She shrugged. "It worked, I guess."

"But… didn't you need a phone to send me that text?" Eli asked.

Alisa shrugged again. "I… 'borrowed' one to send that to you. Don't worry," she tossed nonchalantly at her, catching the expression on her face, "I gave it back."

Eli shook her head slightly. "You didn't need to take that kind of risk."

Her sister stood up. "Yes, I did. That wasn't how I wanted things to end… at least not on my terms." The corner of her mouth twitched, and she looked away. "I know how much effort it would've taken you to find me. I didn't mean to discount that. It wasn't fair of me to say the things that I did."

"I should've tried harder," she insisted.

Alisa jerked her head up in a swift motion. "And get yourself arrested in the process?" Her expression was so similar to the ferocity that was so often present in Umi's amber gaze whenever they discussed the topic that Eli almost took a step backwards, forgetting that she was already perched on the edge of the table.

"I—" She opened her mouth, but the words wouldn't come.

Her sister's expression softened. "That would've been a risk you didn't need to take. After all, it's not like I don't know what kind of person you are. You would've kept trying until someone told you to stop and had a list of reasons to back up what they were saying—that's the only way people can ever convince you that something's not a good idea."

The ghost of a smile tugged at her lips at the observation. Her sister did really know her too well.

"So enough about me," Alisa continued. "How did you find me? You're standing here in front of me, so I'm assuming you didn't break any city regulations in the process."

The crisp, matter-of-fact way that Alisa spoke the words made her throat close far tighter than she would've liked. The Alisa she knew had boundless enthusiasm and possessed a gentleness that was almost impossible to emulate. Eli could not associate the rigid, astringent motions of her arms and hands with the younger sister that had exuded far more grace than she ever had on the dance floor.

"No," she said a minute later, after she'd regained some semblance of control over the direction in which her thoughts were wandering. "I… made a deal with Toujou-sama. There were some things she wanted me to do, and—I mean, she offered to help me find you in exchange." Her voice clattered against the bare walls, but somehow, Eli was still cognizant of the fact that she was not allowed to discuss the subject of her meetings with Toujou.

Alisa carelessly flicked a glance outside of the dark window. "She was there, you know," she quipped. "That night."

"Yes," she affirmed. Though I still don't know why.

"Do you know her well?" her sister suddenly asked her, tone changing into one similar to interest. "Toujou, I mean. I know you said you work for her, but… isn't it kind of odd she would come out here just for your sake?"

"I don't know," Eli said truthfully in response. "We…" The topic of their last conversation made its way into the forefront of her mind. She hadn't had the time or effort to give it considerable thought since it had happened, but the shift in atmosphere between them ever since their first 'real' conversation in the garden a few months ago was now more pronounced than ever. "I never asked her why," she murmured, unsure of whether she was really ready to have this discussion just now.

It was only half an answer, but if it was unsatisfactory, Alisa didn't show it. "So what's she like?" There was a hint of purpose behind the question now, and Eli thought she knew where the conversation was headed. "You must've spoken with her personally before, and given the fact that she decided to follow you out here, you two must be friends of some sort."

"No—" she protested immediately. "Well, not really," she amended, when Alisa gave her a skeptical look. "We're… "

I think we finally understand each other. The sentence hovered on the tip of her tongue, but for some reason, Eli was reluctant to say it out loud.

"She's not what I expected," she finally offered. "I think… I was expecting the person she presents herself as on the media all the time, but… that isn't her."

She looked up to find her sister looking at her with an intrigued look on her face. When she spoke, her voice was thoughtful. "Hm. So do you think she's actually serious about her new law?" Alisa gestured with her arms, spreading them in a circle around her, and Eli suddenly knew what she was asking—why she'd even asked about Toujou to begin with. "The outer districts of this city aren't going to go away, you know," she continued. "She's had four years to think about a solution—eight, if you count the time her father was in office. Is she only proposing it because she's trying to make herself look better, or is she actually serious about changing how this city works?"

For some reason, the first, most prominent thing that came to mind was not Toujou, but the young girl she had met on the streets of Tokyo by the waterfront. The memory felt fresh, as though it had been created just yesterday, before it redirected to the conversation they had had in Toujou's car.

"No," Eli said quietly. She found that she knew the next words she wanted to say with absolute certainty, though she could not for the life of her understand how that certainty had come about. "She truly wants to change this city. But I think she finally understands it's not going to be as easy as she thinks it is. You know, all this time, the people around her have told her it's not going to work. To some degree, I think she must've known that her ideals weren't going to be accepted just like that—but I don't think she actually saw what it meant for herself until…"

Until she saw us that night, her brain helpfully supplied. She cut herself off before she could say it.

The corners of Alisa's mouth curled into a small smile. "You know, you sound like you know her far better than I would've expected anyone to know her. You can't be serious when you say you're not at least friends."

A faint streak of heat slowly climbed up her neck at the final word in the sentence.

"You know, nothing's stopping us from being friends now."

"Alisa," she groaned, scrubbing a hand unconsciously over her face at the memory. "I didn't come here to discuss—" Eli couldn't finish her sentence, because her sister was laughing at her—a sound she hadn't heard for a very long time.

"I thought you would've at least gotten a little better at talking about your feelings in the last four years," she told her, amusement decorating her voice. "But I see you haven't changed at all."

"But you have," Eli replied simply, not intending for the knife of sorrow to bury itself in her words and wincing internally when it did anyways.

Alisa closed her eyes for a long, drawn out heartbeat before opening them again. Periwinkle met cerulean as she met her gaze at last. "Yes." She tucked a lock of long, straw-yellow blonde hair behind her left ear, causing the small flower hairpin in her hair to twinkle against the poor illumination provided by the single light in the room. "But that… couldn't be helped."

She crossed her arms then, folding them across her chest and the rough grey cloak she was wearing over her clothes as she strode over to the small window that looked out across the endless rubble just beyond the thin stone walls. "It's impossible to live here and not change."

"What happened?" The soft question fought its way past her lips before she could wrestle them under control; she wondered if the slight waver in the syllables was as obvious to Alisa as it was to her. There was a part of her that had to know and a part of her that wanted her to put her hands over her ears because she didn't think she could bear to hear the answer from Alisa herself.

"I don't… really remember," her sister finally said. "It's sort of hazy. I remember them taking my blood, and someone said that they wouldn't be taking me to a hospital. I remembered wondering why. I didn't really know what had happened to me until they dropped me off at the clinic over in the 39th district. What else is there to say?" she asked. "I've been here ever since."

"I'm sorry," Eli automatically apologized. The offering of remorse was mechanical, but its delivery felt cursory to her at best: she didn't think there was a way to fully express the sense of regret pressing against her shoulders and chest like it might've weighed the world.

"There's nothing to be sorry for," Alisa stated simply, a hint of her old optimism creeping into her tone as she continued. "There was nothing you could've done. You and I both know how this city operates—Edenra victims aren't considered citizens, as far as the district is aware. Unless you're somewhere up high on the political ladder, there was no way for you to know something like this. If anything, I should be the one who's saying sorry. The way I reacted that night wasn't okay—I shouldn't have taken out my anger at the system on you."

Alisa turned away from the window then, but she hovered by the wall, hesitancy present every motion. The gentleness in her next words was almost unbearable. "I would've understood, you know, if you were too angry at me to show up tonight."

"That was never going to happen," Eli argued back, finding some tangible control over her voice at last. How could I have been angry? "So long as you still wanted to see me."

A genuine smile tugged at the corners of her sister's lips and Eli had perhaps a moment of warning before Alisa caught her in an awkward hug, burying her face against her collarbone. Her initial reaction should've been to flinch, but that instinct was buried far beneath the swell of emotions that cumulated at the back of her throat as she raised her own arms, completing the embace. It felt raw again, but not in the same way that it had done for months previously. This was a pain she would've taken gladly over the months—years—of agony that had preceded it.

"I'm really, really glad you came to see me, Sis." Alisa's muted voice was constricted by a sniffle, the syllables nasally as she spoke through it. "For the longest time, the thing that scared me the most was that you'd be too afraid to even come near me ever again."

"Why would you think that?" Eli asked her gently, fighting back her own tears. She couldn't think of something that could be further than the truth.

Alisa took a half-step back, swiping at her cheek with a free hand. "Was it silly of me to assume?"

She nodded, not trusting her voice with any amount of words at the moment. "I still remember when you were afraid to ride a bicycle on your own," she said. "What happened to that little girl?"

Her sister laughed, the sound a bright peal of bells as she leaned back in. "I don't know. Things, I guess. This isn't what any of us would've wanted, but right now, I think that this is the first time I can kind of accept what's happened."

"Really?" Sorrow clenched at her heart like a fist.

Alisa nodded against her shoulder. "Like I said in my text, for the longest time, I didn't know who I was supposed to be angry at. On some days it was how this city was run, and on others it was you. In a way, I became the terrible kind of person we've always hated, because between you, Umi-san, and Maki-san, the most important thing the three of you have taught me was that no matter what, we still have to keep living. But all I could think about was how unfair everything was, and over time, that turned into resentment." There was a pause as Alisa breathed in, letting out a long sigh. "I guess the other half of it was that living out here is so different from what my old life looked like that I couldn't help but feel bitter about the way things could've been."

Eli placed her hands on her sister's shoulders and pushed back far enough so that she could see her face. "But, are you sure you're safe out here? Be honest with me."

A breathy, rueful snort broke past Alisa's lips as she shook her head slightly. "It's not like you could bring me back into Tokyo even if it was possible. Besides, I've spent long enough being taken care of by other people—I had to do things for myself eventually." She shook her head again, more forcefully this time. "No, I've found people who I can call my friends, and who I know I can rely on. I know I can trust them. We… made a pact to live every day as it comes. We don't discuss the future or the what-ifs. Life out here might be terrible, but there are ways to make it less so."

Despite everything that had led them up to this point and despite the turmoil of emotions that still rocked just underneath the surface, Eli found that there was a faint smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. The little girl who had been afraid to make friends at school, who had once given Umi a can of beans as a drink because she hadn't known better, was gone. If she had had any doubts about that fact before, then they were absolutely gone now. The thought made her nostalgic, but it hurt in a way she couldn't express. The feeling was only compounded by the fact that she knew their time was limited. It had remained unsaid between them the entire time, but it had always been there, prowling at the back of her mind like an unwanted ghoul.

Alisa finally took a step back, clasping her hands behind her back. "So yes, I've changed. Not all of it might be for the better, but I've had to make do with what I've got. I just hope that one day, this city can change too. Maybe with a little help from Toujou-sama." She readjusted the cloak around her shoulders. "You'll come see me again, right?"

"Of course," Eli answered. She opened her mouth to say something else before she was interrupted by a sound like thunder; a shudder gripped the floor as the ceiling shook, dislodging motes of dust that rained down on them like ash.

Coughing, straining to see in the inadequate light, rough fingers gripped her hand as Alisa threw open the door, pulling her along with her.

Smoke plumed into the night sky as the two of them ducked into the streets. Covering her nose and mouth with her arm, Eli squinted into the darkness, making out nothing but rubble and half-ruined buildings for the first few seconds until she spotted the flames burning viciously in the not-so-far-off distance. "What—"

She half-turned when Alisa shoved her in the direction of the city. "Sis, go," her sister hissed.

Eli began to protest before a coughing fit seized her lungs.

Alisa's fingers wrapped around her upper arms more forcefully, the urgency in her voice evident even through the low raspy croak that was all the smoke allowed. "No! That's an explosion. No one in the outer districts would have the resources to make a bomb, so it would've had to been someone from the city. The people around here don't recognize you!"

The implication clicked into place, a few seconds too slow as Eli realized what she was trying to say. "But—"

"Go," Alisa insisted again, cutting her off. "I'll be fine, I promise. I'll send you another text next time."

She had no choice. The rational part of her brain knew that her sister was right—the citizens of the outer district didn't know who she was, and the logical conclusion would be to assume that she had been the one to set off the explosive, being the only stranger in their midst. Even the trench knife stuffed in her boot wouldn't be enough to deter the angry mob that the explosion was sure to have enraged.

Stumbling in the darkness, Eli climbed the hillside slowly, stopping every couple of meters to cough into her arm as the rising smoke tailed her up the path. When she reached the top of the sharp incline where the district car was waiting for her, she looked back.

The flames were evident even from where she was standing, a bright molten sea of fire spreading from not far where Alisa lived. She shuddered, even though the early August night was anything but cold. It could've… She dismissed the thought before it could progress, not needing the possibilities that it entailed in her head.

Who would do this? Eli found that the answer came to her easily enough, as she climbed in through the door of the car that was held open for her by the attendant. She had no doubt that whoever had ordered the bombing was part of the large opposition to Toujou's new policy, and had finally gotten fed up enough to act upon it.

Something akin to horrified panic crept along her skin as she thought about it. Even if you hated them… is this really necessary? It would've been easy for her to lie to herself that it wasn't something she needed to be worried about, and it would've been even easier had she not just met her sister who lived not a kilometer from where the bomb had been set off, but Eli knew that there was no way she could think like that anymore. Perhaps Alisa had been right—that Toujou was rubbing off on her a little now that they knew each other better—but deep inside, the true nature of her feelings lurked, like a tiny bird taking flight for the first time.

Sooner or later, we're going to have to deal with this, whether we like it or not.