"There are things out there I believe that can't be changed. I don't necessarily believe in fate, but I believe in the universe's ability to mete out its own justice in the fullness of its own time.

I don't know if meeting Eli was one of those things, but I'd like to.

My father, on the other hand, believed that we had complete control over our destinies—that our futures were shaped by our hands alone. But after everything that's happened, I can't say that I still believe that. There have been too many things far, far out of our own control that we could never have had the capacity to foresee; even if we were given the chance to do everything again, I'm not sure we would be able to make the correct choices.

In the face of that, in a city where the most meaningful thing that remains are our connections with each other, we can only hope for the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things that we can, and the wisdom to know the difference." —Toujou Nozomi

"We need to talk."

Eli reread the message on her phone from Umi for what felt like umpteenth time as she entered the building that housed Maki's laboratory. It wasn't hard to guess what exactly Umi wanted to talk about, but unfortunately, it was a conversation she didn't really feel like having at the moment and she'd had half a mind to deny the request when she'd first received the text a few hours earlier.

She was well aware of the fact that neither of her friends approved of her relationship with Nozomi, but there was nothing she could do about that. There was nothing she could say that would change how they felt about it, and similarly, there was nothing they could say to change how she felt about it. Still, she was aware that it was a fact that would take them some time to get used to and she could understand that—although it had taken more effort than she really would've preferred to expend to keep her temper around a particular redhead.

Unlocking the door, she found both her friends present in the brightly lit underground room. Maki was hunched over one of her lab notebooks, chewing on the end of one of her pens, while Umi was leaning against one of the computer desks. It was impossible to miss the tense, anxious way that they both held themselves, which only served to fuel her suspicion as she descended the short flight of steps.

She stopped a few feet away from the pair of them, consciously aware of the way Umi was watching her. Eli couldn't immediately read the expression in her blue-haired friend's amber gaze, and she wasn't surprised at all by the fact that Maki seemed to be stubbornly ignoring her.

When neither of her friends spoke, she broke the silence. "So… what is this about?"

She couldn't help the wary glance she cast in Maki's direction, as the redhead finally raised her head, shifting her gaze away from her notes.

Umi gestured tersely to the pair of chairs beside her. "We should sit."

Eli raised an eyebrow in her direction, although she did as she was told. Unease was beginning to prickle underneath her skin—she remembered all too well the last time Umi had asked her to sit down during one of their conversations, and the memory brought a chill that began at her feet and slowly, steadily worked its way upwards.

"This isn't about what you think this is about, by the way," Maki suddenly spoke up. Though a trace of irritation remained in her crisp tone, there was something else lingering underneath it that she couldn't place.

"So what is this about, then?"

Umi took a breath, exchanging a hesitant, meaningful look with the redhead before she spoke. "Maybe you should explain."

Maki glared at her, but the look was less than potent as she stood, clutching her notebook in one hand so hard that her knuckles turned white. Watching her rise, Eli realized that she recognized the expression in Maki's eyes. She had seen it before: once when the three of them had been huddled on the tiled foyer of her family's mansion, and once just before she had left to testify against her father in the district courts.

"Eli." The syllables of her own name sounded strange coming from Maki. Perhaps it was because she hadn't heard it spoken without derision for the better part of a week, but it sounded empty and numb, as though effort had been put into it to make it as minimally intrusive as possible. "I… found something that I'm fairly certain is the solution to the Ceresis."

Eli looked up sharply, her heart at her throat in an instant. "What? You—"

Maki shook her head, a silent plea to let her continue as Eli closed her mouth. "But the Ceresis… aren't the only things that it works on. I still have to confirm the results, but… from what I have so far, it has the same effects on anyone who's been infected by Edenra."

It took her a few heartbeats to process that particular sentence.

"What?"

No. No. The distant, clinical part of her mind put together the implications even though the rest of her didn't want to just yet, and Eli felt her fingernails digging into her palms, the pain barely registering against the storm of emotions rising against her chest. "You…"

She couldn't finish her sentence. Whether it was because she didn't want to, or because she was incapable of doing so, she didn't know.

Maki closed her eyes; even though she didn't want to see the pain in her amethyst gaze, Eli knew it was there. "No. But… this isn't up to me anymore. I… wasn't the one who did the tests to get those results, and I should've been. If I had, I wouldn't have said anything until I found something that only affects the Ceresis."

Eli shook her head once, hearing the words but somehow unable to comprehend what they meant. "I don't understand."

"Honoka." Maki said the name as though it was an explanation, her voice listless and subdued. "Honoka was the one who got those results. She was the one who modified the Namidite into something that I thought would work, so she volunteered to help me run some tests. If I'd known that she would be this careless and blabber about the fucking results to everyone she met that afternoon, I would've said no." Maki paused, breathing out a sigh of frustration that came out as half-growl, half-groan. "But… she's told enough people that I'm sure this will be brought to the government at some point sooner or later. I… don't have the authority to stop that. Eli, I'm sorry."

If nothing else, it was the gentleness in Maki's voice that caught her where the brittle, disdainful sarcasm and frustration from the previous week wouldn't; Maki was so many things, but gentle was not one of them, just like the redhead pretended she was never vulnerable—unless someone was hopeless. In a way, it was almost like she had come back to the beginning: sitting hopeless and almost alone in the midst of a situation that she had no control—and would never have control—over.

Eli tried to force herself to stand, but the feat felt impossible. Her throat ached and her hands clenched over and over, nails unable to find purchase on the cold sweat of her palms. She tried to scrape the words out of the back of her throat, but they wouldn't come.

She ended up staring at Maki, dizzy and sick.

There was a part of her that should've been angry. Realistically, Eli knew that her friends were expecting her to be angry. The apprehensive, nervous way that they held themselves when she had arrived made sense to her now in perfect, lifeless clarity. But even digging down deep into the wasteland of emotions that had somehow settled into her lungs, she couldn't find any anger. What was there for her to be angry at? Even if it would be so much easier for her to blame Maki, she couldn't.

Silence wrapped around them like fog, thick and unforgiving. Eli did not think she had the capability to speak—or cry—at the moment. It was probably for the best. There was nothing she could say right now she knew she wouldn't regret at some unknown point in the future, and there was absolutely no point in crying.

Finally, Umi broke it as she leaned forward to grip her shoulder—an uncharacteristic gesture of physical reassurance. "Eli, listen to me." Her quiet voice trembled, but strangely, there was purpose behind it. "You need to go and speak with Toujou-sama."

Eli looked up at her underneath her blonde bangs, unable to process what Umi was trying to tell her to do. "About what?" she mumbled wearily. Is it because neither of you want to deal with this? Even if she had the courage to voice that thought aloud, her throat wouldn't let her. "So she can feel sorry for me?"

"No." Maki took a step towards her, crinkling the pages of her notebook between her fingers until she set it down on the table beside her. "You do realize that this is going to have to pass through her eventually, right? Whatever this district decides to do, she needs to agree. You need to speak to her before this reaches her by some other means."

When Eli stared at her, still unsure of what she was trying to say, Maki threw up her hands. "Look, I need more time." She enunciated the words slowly, the syllables heavy and weighted. "You know as well as I do that the politicians in this city are going to want us to put what we've found to use as soon as possible the moment they find out about this. The only person who can delay that is her. If we're going to find a better solution, she's the only one who can give us the time that we need."

Eli shook her head slowly. "No," she said, the words muffled, her voice breaking. She's… already in such a difficult position. She can't do this for my sake. But she knew she couldn't say those words out loud; out of respect, if nothing else, she knew it was something she had no right to reveal. "She can't just…"

Umi stood up. "You… don't know that. Regardless, she has to know, whether or not she can do something about it. Would it not be better if she heard it from you, rather than someone else?"

Maki crossed her arms as she leaned back against one of her gurneys, the irritation that coloured her voice softened by the crease of concern around her eyebrows. "Eli, just go talk to your girlfriend, okay?" She snorted softly as though the term personally offended her. "She's the most powerful person in Tokyo. That has to count for something, right?"

"I don't know what to do," Eli repeated numbly. The words felt forced and meaningless, the last vestiges of control she had over a situation that she had never had any over to begin with.

They were sitting outside on a stone bench. It was colder now that the sun had set, but it was the only place that she could guarantee that they would not be overheard. Eli wasn't sure what the source of the icy chill on her skin was: the stiff wind that threatened to strip the remaining leaves from their branches, or the heavy knowledge that had settled into the region of her stomach like a stone.

Nozomi was silent for a long time—so long, in fact, that Eli wasn't sure if she should have said anything to begin with. "I'm sorry," she mumbled automatically. "I shouldn't have bothered you with this."

"No." Turning slightly so that she could face her, the violet-haired woman reached out and took her hand. "Your friends were right when they told you you had to tell me."

"But, there's nothing you can do," Eli argued back. "If it's something that this entire city wants you to do, you can't just say no because of me."

"You're thinking too far ahead," Nozomi told her. "You may be right that my advisors and the rest of the politicians in this city will want me to approve of this, especially when it would eliminate the need to respond to President Tenjoin, but we haven't gotten to that point yet. Even if they were to find out about this tomorrow, it would still take them some time to come up with a way to present it to me. All things considered, I don't anticipate a lobby about this for another week or two. And remember," she added, "whatever they come up with, I still have to agree to."

"But… you will have to agree… don't you?" I know what the answer to this question is. I shouldn't even be asking it, but I can't help myself.

The poignant sorrow in the verdant gaze looking back at her was unmistakable. "Yes. I think so." Nozomi did not elaborate, but there was no need to—the political situation in the district could not have more clear to them both.

It felt surreally ironic that the solution to every single problem that had divided the city over the past year would present itself to them like this. Eli knew all too well how the rest of the district felt about the Ceresis, Edenra, and its victims. Even if her opinion held more weight than theirs, she knew it would be impossible for her to expect Nozomi to base her decision off of that alone. After all, I was the one who told her she couldn't throw away everything she's worked for for the sake of one person.

Why?

It was a question she knew no matter how long she looked, she would never find an answer to. Knowing that particular fact did not make her feel any better, but it was better than admitting, even to herself, that there was nothing she could do.

Nozomi's fingers worked at hers, prying them loose from their cold, stiff positions as Eli finally mustered the courage to look back at her. "Have you… spoken with your sister recently?" she asked her gently.

Eli closed her eyes. "Yes," she answered, forcing her voice to behave. "I have."

The other woman frowned slightly at her reply. "How did it go?"

Although the question was meant to be unobtrusive, it pressed against her chest like a blade. She had kept what had happened to herself, not because she intended to keep it that way, but because she hadn't known how to have that particular conversation. She still didn't know how to have that particular conversation, but it was far too late for her to avoid the topic now.

"Not well," she admitted at last. It was like every syllable of the two word sentence burned her tongue as she said it, and she tried not to falter under Nozomi's intent green gaze.

Eli had gone to see her sister not long after Nozomi's last meeting with Tenjoin. It hadn't exactly been planned, but it wasn't a meeting she was going to refuse.

However, unlike the previous times that they had met, Alisa had insisted on meeting her near the waterfront of Tokyo Bay. She had refused to elaborate in the short text that she had sent her, instead giving her the directions to a still-standing apartment that had been abandoned eight years previously.

When Eli had finally arrived, she found her sister already waiting for her, leaning against the cold stone wall with her arms crossed and straw-blonde hair tucked underneath the hood of her cloak. Anything she might've wanted to say to her was stopped short by the expression on Alisa's face before her sister realized she was there. It was a troubled look that she knew far too well, even though it had been four years since she'd seen it in person.

"What's wrong?" The question was instinctual.

Alisa had jerked her head up in surprise, not having heard her approach. Eli saw her open her mouth to voice the first syllable in the word 'nothing' before she closed it. "I don't know," she said, a heavy sigh creeping in at the end of her sentence. "Maybe this wasn't a good idea."

Eli had looked at her, unsure of what she meant. "What… are you talking about?"

"Just thinking, I guess." Alisa shrugged. "Maybe it's not a good idea for us to keep meeting like this. I mean, what's the point?"

"What are you talking about?" she repeated, ignoring the way the words held onto her throat like grating sandpaper.

"I don't know," Alisa told her. "It's not the same anymore, you know? Ever since that bomb." Bitterness corroded the end of her sentence like acid as she continued. "I always used to think that it was possible this district could change. Before all that happened, I really believed it was possible. But now, I know it was stupid of me to even hope that the people who live in the city could ever move past what's happened. We're not people they want anything to do with—in fact, to them, we're not even people, just something else they don't want in their district."

Eli had wanted to argue, but she knew anything she could've said was a lie. There was nothing she could say to deny her sister's claims, because she had seen everything that she'd talked about for herself.

"That's why I said we should meet here instead," she went on, tossing the explanation out carelessly like it no longer mattered. "It wouldn't have gone well if I met you where we met last time."

"For me… or for you?" Eli asked her quietly.

Alisa laughed, the sound dry and derisive. "For both of us."

Both of them looked around at the sound of the door opening behind them. Eli's eyes widened when a familiar, silver-haired girl stepped into the dimness of the apartment, dirty, calloused fingers holding her jacket closed around her.

It was the same girl that she had met on more than one occasion by Tokyo's waterfront.

"I didn't know you were going to be here today," the girl greeted her sister, taking a few steps towards them.

"I didn't know you were going to be here either," Alisa replied.

Eli was unprepared for the moment that the girl took her hand gently as a form of greeting. She had expected to have to force herself not to flinch like the previous time, but to her surprise, her body did not react to the sudden touch as she might've expected it to.

"Oh," the girl said softly. "You're that pretty lady from before."

Alisa narrowed her eyes at them skeptically. "I didn't realize that the two of you knew each other."

The silver-haired girl smiled. "I told you that someone stopped to help me more than once while I was in Tokyo… remember?"

Alisa looked sharply in her direction. "That was you?"

Eli met her gaze, unable to neither help nor rein in the hurt in her chest at the surprise in her sister's tone, and nodded once. "Yes."

That was the only time that afternoon she saw her sister smile, a fleeting expression that seemed to longer for only a heartbeat before it was gone.

"How's Yui?" Alisa asked the girl, concern clouding her gaze as she turned towards her.

For the first time since she had entered, Eli saw her fix her gaze on the floor. "She's… not getting any better."

Although the name was unfamiliar, Eli remembered enough of the conversation that they'd had at the roadside to guess who they were talking about. "Is that your sister?" she asked tentatively. "What happened?"

The girl looked up at her. "You remembered," she said, the words gently wondrous and bittersweet before they broke under the stride of something much more desolate. "She was caught in the bomb blast. The clinic in the outer district did what they could, of course, but… it wasn't enough. There are never enough resources to help everybody. I know it can't be helped, but… sometimes I wish I could've given anything for things to be different," she finished quietly.

Unsure of what to say—or what was even appropriate for her to say—Eli stood there. There was no way for her to express the weight of the helplessness pressing against her sternum and she had no right to share in their sorrow, because she lived in a world that was completely different from the reality the people in front of her knew. Whether she wanted to or not, she knew it was a fact that could not be changed.

Noise outside the apartment broke her out of her thoughts as Alisa rushed to the grimy, broken window to look outside. Eli watched her stiffen very slightly, reading the tense set of her shoulders as her sister turned around.

"You should go, sis," Alisa told her, her voice terse, emotionless, and utterly flat.

"But—"

Her sister cut her off. "No. Have you forgotten where you are? Soon, it's not going to be safe out there. It's just not worth it for you to stay here any longer. Get going," she repeated.

Herding her towards the door, Alisa turned back once, tossing her final words over her shoulder. "I don't think it's a good idea for you to come back. It's not worth it," she said again. "Especially if something were to happen to you now."

A cold breeze circled her feet, dragging fallen leaves and dust with it, but Eli barely felt it through the ice that seemed to have replaced her skin as she retold the encounter. It was impossible to remain emotionless in the face of recounting what had happened, but a thick layer of numb exhaustion had settled over her, dimming the familiar stirrings of helpless grief that the memory brought back to the surface.

Nozomi had listened to her in silence. What the district ruler was thinking was impossible to tell in the gathering darkness, but Eli did not particularly care to try at the moment. Her limbs felt like they weighed more than they had any right to weigh, and the memory of what had happened only served to increase their gravity.

"Are you… planning on going to talk to her?"

The question was impossibly gentle, but that did not help. "I have to, don't I?" she asked bitterly. "Even if she doesn't want to see me again, it's not like I have a choice."

The violet-haired woman looked at her, the intensity in her verdant gaze startling her out of the disquiet of her thoughts. "No. You always have a choice."

Eli shook her head empathetically. "If I'm not going to be the one who tells her, then who will?" Who else in this city would ever voluntarily decide to make that choice? "Unless you're trying to tell me that you would rather no one told her at all? That's—"

"That wasn't what I meant," Nozomi interrupted. "But no one would blame you if you said that you didn't want to go." One of her hands wrapped around Eli's wrist, surprisingly strong.

"What I want doesn't matter," Eli told her quietly. "There are hundreds of things that I wish I could have, but I can't, because none of them are possible. You and I both know that it has to be me." She paused. "It's… the right thing to do."

"I know," Nozomi said softly. "And I respect you for that." An emotion lingered in her gaze for perhaps a heartbeat, too short for Eli to decipher what it was. "Do you want me to go with you?" she asked suddenly.

Eli looked up at her underneath her bangs, surprised, before shaking her head once. "No. It's… probably better if I go alone. But… thanks." She reached out, returning the gentle grip on her fingers. I mean it.

"Alright." Nozomi stood up, straightening out her dress and brushing back messy strands of violet hair from her face as she did so. Unexpectedly, she turned to look back at her, a razor-keen intensity entering her emerald gaze. "But if you're not back—or if I don't hear from you—by an appropriate time, I will be sending someone after you."

Despite the weight of everything that had happened, and underneath the numbness that blunted her nerves, a small smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

"Okay."