Notes:

Chapter Title: MIRAI (Future) - GARNiDELiA

Okay so also like, if out of this entire fic there is only one music suggestion I throw at the beginning of my chapters that you end up listening to, it should be this one. I highly recommend looking up the lyrics to this song (as I can't link them on this site), as by some force of the idol gods I think this song and this fic were meant to be. Call it a NozoEli song of choice, but in reality it suits everything that happens this chapter.

"For the first time in my life, I don't want to move forward. For even just a moment, I need tomorrow and all its terrible possibilities to stay on the other side of the door.

But that isn't how this universe works. It just… it feels like for everything that happens that gives me hope that tomorrow will be better than the piece of time we call today, something else will happen to remind me that we don't live in a world like that.

I will never have the courage to say this out loud, but… if I hadn't gone looking for my sister, would any of this have happened? Is that possibility worth everything that's happened since then? Do I want to put the most meaningful thing that's happened to me for the last eight years up as the price for that possibility? If I'm supposed to have an answer to that question, I know that I don't. I don't think I ever will." —Ayase Eli

"Maki-chan." Honoka spoke her name with uncharacteristic seriousness as Maki swivelled around to look at her from where she was sitting, her head half-buried in her notes, disentangling one hand from her messy red hair.

"What?"

Honoka held up the beaker in one gloved hand. "I really don't think this is going to work."

She eyed the liquid in the beaker suspiciously. "We can't titrate that down further?"

The lab technician heaved a tiny sigh that did not escape her notice. "I can, but if the concentration goes any lower than this, it won't work on the Ceresis. I told you, it's like titrating an acid base concentration. There's a very specific concentration that basically determines whether or not it's effective on the Ceresis, and I've tried everything that you came up with last time."

"Then you can keep trying," Maki told her, trying—and failing—not to let her frustration show through her voice.

Honoka opened her mouth to argue before she closed it, catching the expression on her face. She guessed that the orange-haired woman still felt guilty about blurting out the results of their previous tests without her giving the okay to do so; otherwise, Maki knew that she wouldn't have been able to get a word in edgewise.

She turned her attention back to her notes sprawled in front of her. Staring at the numbers and hastily scribbled anecdotes did not help, because they weren't the answer to the problem in front of her. As much as she would've liked to get some fresh air to clear her head, she couldn't even leave her office during the daytime without one of the other physicians making a point to stop her in the hallway to congratulate her on finding "the cure."

It's not the cure. Unless we figure out a way for it to be harmless to everyone who lives in this district, I can't call it that. Maki was sick and tired of the unwanted attention that she had unwittingly brought upon herself, but moreover, she was sick and tired of trying to explain why she still spent most of her time shut up in her office at work, especially when she knew that the people who asked her that question would never understand.

Her problems were only compounded by the fact that she knew they were running out of time. She had already been contacted by several politicians more than once over the past two weeks, and while she had managed to deflect the majority of their questions and requests at the time, she knew that she couldn't avoid them forever.

"I'm going to get some coffee," she muttered, half to herself over the sound of Honoka's tinkering. She eyed the three empty cups that lay scattered around her workplace: her caffeine intake was directly proportional to the amount of stress she was under.

"Don't get caught by the reporters," Honoka called after her as Maki made her way to the door. She scowled, knowing that the media was amongst the last group of people she wanted to run into that morning.

Zombie-like, she stumbled to the cafeteria of the hospital, intent on finding the strongest cup of coffee it had to offer. Still deep in thought about what she and Honoka could still try, Maki almost didn't notice that she had nearly walked into someone.

"Sorry," she mumbled, before her vision refocused.

Maki found herself staring at a head of black hair, the short woman's hands resting on her hips. "I've been trying to get your attention forever," Yazawa snapped at her. "What, do you not pay attention to what's going on around you or something?"

Maki hadn't seen the woman in question since she'd performed the surgery on her brother. When his name disappeared off her patient list, she'd assumed it was because his care had been transferred to an outpatient team. She hadn't bothered to give it a second thought because quite frankly, she'd been glad that she didn't have to deal with his sister anymore.

"You might have remembered that I'm a busy person," Maki told her dryly, staring past her shoulder and wondering when it would be acceptable for her to cut the conversation short.

"I know you're a busy person," the black-haired woman retorted. "I don't need a reminder, thank you." Suddenly sheepish, she looked down at her boots, scuffling the toe of one over the other. "Anyways, I guess… I just wanted to say that I didn't have the opportunity to thank you in person, that's all. He's doing really well now, you know."

Taken aback by the sudden reticence, Maki stared incredulously at her. "I'm sorry?"

Yazawa huffed. "You heard what I said. Don't make me repeat myself." She dug in her coat pocket for something, as she pulled her face mask back over the lower half of her face.

"Here," she said suddenly, thrusting a piece of paper at her.

"What is this?" Maki asked her, fighting to keep the suspicion out of her voice. She'd been about to say that she didn't normally accept things from patients, before she kept that thought to herself—saying it out loud would only invite trouble she wasn't in the mood to deal with at the moment.

"A business card," the other woman told her, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"You've given me one already," Maki told her automatically.

"Yeah? I gave you my business card." Yazawa shook the small piece of paper in her hand empathetically. "But my siblings help my mom run a café. You know, they'd actually really appreciate it if you showed up so they could thank you in person."

Not for the first time around the black-haired woman, Maki found herself shocked into speechlessness. Ingrained social etiquette demanded that she take the thin piece of paper and she held onto it between two fingers, her hand still extended because she was unsure of what to do with it.

"You better still have my number," Yazawa grumbled. "I don't have time to go around printing more business cards for people who lose them." She paused, awkwardly looking to one side. "A-Anyways, I guess I'll give you permission to give me a call when you know, you're not busy saving lives and doing research or whatever. I'll take you—since you look like you're one of those people who'd get lost in Tokyo."

With that, she rehoisted her bag over her shoulder and turned to leave. Maki watched her collect her younger brother from where he was sitting at a table before the pair of them left the hospital cafeteria through the doors that led to the parking lot.

Completely forgetting her original task of getting coffee in the cafeteria, she turned around to retrace her footsteps back to her office. The piece of thin cardboard in her hand felt like it weighed much more than it should've, but surprisingly, it wasn't in a bad way. Although she was loath to admit it, the quick, cold sting of Yazawa's words hadn't had the effect that she would've anticipated that they had on her.

Maki slipped the business card into the pocket of her lab coat.

Outside the glass of Kotori's apartment window, Umi watched the late autumn wind tug relentlessly at the leaves of the trees outside. Soon, she knew their boughs would be weighed down by snow.

Soft footsteps behind her announced Kotori's arrival, her hands occupied with two teacups. "You said Eli-chan was going today?" she asked.

Wordlessly, Umi took one of the cups from her and nodded.

"Are you worried?" her fiancée observed, moving so that she stood beside her at the balcony window.

"A little," she admitted truthfully.

"You could have gone with her if you're worried about her safety, you know," Kotori said gently. "I wouldn't have minded. Most of the wedding things have been settled anyways. There isn't much left for us to do."

Umi shook her head. "She wanted to go alone. It didn't feel right for me to insist." She paused, biting her lip as she searched for the right words to say. "To be honest, I'm more worried about what Alisa might say to her, as opposed to what might happen while she's out there. I'm certain that Toujou-sama will have made sure that she won't be in any physical danger."

Kotori smiled, the gentle expression tugging at the corners of her mouth. "I think they're good for each other, don't you?"

Umi looked sideways at her fiancée, hearing the earnest undertone of her words and unsure if she agreed with it. "I don't know," she finally said. "I do think that it's about time that she found someone. For herself, I suppose. I… just hope that she isn't making a mistake."

What was left unsaid was that on top of everything else that seemed to be coming down around them, there was no room for mistakes. If it turned out that her relationship with Toujou was one, then Umi could easily see Eli shutting out the rest of the world and burying herself in whatever unhealthy job offer she had at the time.

"You don't like her? Toujou-sama, I mean." Kotori inquired curiously, tilting her head to one side.

"It's more the fact that I don't know her," Umi replied tersely. "I know that really, it isn't any of my business. Even if it was, I know that I have no control over what Eli does or the choices she makes. She is perfectly capable of making rational, mature decisions, and I want to respect that. But… out of the three of us, she is also the one who is the most prone to making decisions based on her emotions, and because of that, I just don't want her to regret making the decision she did. That's all."

Kotori clasped her hands behind her back as she set down her empty teacup. "You know," she said musingly, "I'm pretty sure Toujou-sama knows that. You might not have noticed because you've known her for so long, but… Eli-chan is a pretty difficult person to approach, even on a casual basis. If there wasn't something that Toujou-sama genuinely liked about who she was, then I'm sure she wouldn't have put forth the effort to get to know her."

She paused, taking in the look on her face and reading it efficiently. "I know that you and Maki-chan don't like most politicians, but before all of this, neither did Eli-chan… right?"

When Umi shook her head, the brunette continued. "Then I'm sure that something must've happened for her to change her mind about Toujou-sama specifically. If she doesn't want to say what it was, then that's up to her. But you know, I don't think we should judge Toujou-sama based on what we see of her from the media. There's more to a person than just the side they choose to present to the public, and I think Eli-chan would appreciate it if you trusted her and the choices that she's made. After all, even if this does turn out to be a mistake, are you going to treat her any differently because of it?"

"No, of course not!" Umi told her, taken aback by the fact that Kotori would even suggest the thought.

Her fiancée smiled at her, the golden expression in her eyes soft. "Then where's the problem? You know her well enough to trust that she's not making a mistake, and you know that you're going to be there for her even if it is."

Umi blinked at her, taking in Kotori's warm, assuring demeanour as she slowly let out a breath that she had not realized she had been holding. "You're right," she acquiesced finally.

The brunette smiled again, reaching up to press a fingertip to Umi's nose. "When it comes to things like this, when am I ever wrong?"

"So what's this about?" Alisa leaned back against the cold stone side of the fallen apartment block. "I thought I told you that it wasn't safe for you around here anymore."

The wind chill seemed to contribute to the icy dismissiveness in her sister's voice as Eli looked back at her. In the narrow space of the alley between two abandoned buildings that they were currently standing in, it felt both too close and too far at the same time.

"You did," she replied quietly, unable and unwilling to rise to the bait, knowing that if she responded accordingly to the aggression they would get absolutely nowhere. "But something's happened."

"Really?" Alisa quirked an eyebrow at her. "What would that be?"

She took a breath. Eli had rehearsed in her head for the better part of two weeks what exactly she was going to say when the moment was finally upon her, but somehow, it still felt woefully inadequate. The syllables were unfamiliar shapes on her tongue and her voice felt like it was stuck in her throat.

"Maki thinks she's found something that will eliminate the Ceresis. But… it has the same effect on anyone who's been infected with Edenra. She's… doing everything she can to modify it, but she might not have enough time to come up with something before the district decides to use it anyways."

The words were hollow, and they hung there in the space between them. Eli waited for her sister to react—to do something—but Alisa just stood there. Underneath the hood of her cloak, her expression was unreadable.

Long minutes stretched between them in silence, only interrupted by the sound of the wind rushing around the ruins of the empty, fallen buildings, melancholy and lonely.

"Why are you telling me this?" Alisa asked her in a low voice at last. Her words hardened. "What are you looking for? Permission?"

Though the response tightened around her windpipe like a garrotte, Eli forced her throat to cooperate. "No. I just thought… you had a right to know."

"Well, now I do," Alisa told her. She looked around, sweeping the hood of her cloak off her head and shaking out her hair in the early winter wind. "But for what it's worth, I think it's a good idea."

Eli stared at her. She had foreseen the anger and the disappointment—and had even prepared for the fact that it could be directed at her. Out of all the reactions that she had anticipated, that had not been one of them.

"Why?" The question left her lips in a croak. She could not understand the elated trepidation that hovered just underneath Alisa's words and she waited for the endless, weightless drop that she was sure was coming.

There was always a second, a half-heartbeat, when you knew what had happened, but your nerves hadn't told your brain yet that you were supposed to be in agony. It didn't matter what the ammunition was—there was always that last, painless moment while she waited for her body to catch up, dread pooling at the base of her spine.

Alisa swept her right arm around them, gesturing to the alleyway in which they were standing and the streets beyond. "Because this isn't living. When we're too afraid to step outside and run into the bounty hunters that come from the city every morning and desperate enough to fight each other for just the scraps of resources around here, would you call any of that living? I told you the last time that we met that there's no way that this city and the people in it will ever be able to change. They can't stop repeating the mistakes they've made in the past because they're not the ones paying for it. We are. This isn't living," she repeated. "This is just another way to die."

She shook her head, a hundred different arguments rising to the back of her throat. "But—"

Her sister took a few steps towards her, feet gritting in the dust and grime of the asphalt beneath them until Eli was convinced that Alisa could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest underneath her coat. Her lungs felt as though a knife had been slipped between her ribs and her throat burned.

They were close enough for her to see Alisa's expression soften by the tiniest margin. "I know you want to save everyone," Alisa murmured, cutting her off. "That's just the kind of person you are. But that… isn't possible. Not in the world we live in. Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made."

"No," she protested, reaching out a hand.

Alisa let her grip her elbow before she placed her bare hand on top of hers. "We—everyone that lives here, at least—have all been waiting for the end. It's just another thing that we have to accept, because it's inevitable. We just don't know when it will be. Some people might prefer it that way, but… I don't. If the city goes through with this, at least I'll know that it was for something. That's better than not knowing how long it'll be until the end, and not knowing what will happen when it does come."

"No," Eli said again, unable to put the wild, barren ache in her chest to words.

"You're friends with Toujou-sama, aren't you?" Alisa asked her, pushing the conversation onward even though Eli knew her sister knew there was no way she was ready to. When she nodded numbly once, unable to expound on that particular detail, Alisa went on. "You told me before that she wanted to know what the people who live here think about her decisions. Well, I'll tell you this: I think she'd be stupid not to go through with this."

She closed her eyes, not wanting to hear what would come next. "Alisa…"

Cool, slender fingers pried her hand away from where it was resting on Alisa's elbow as her sister held it, the contact surprisingly gentle. It was silent for a few minutes before she spoke again.

"You know, I'm glad you came and told me. Really," she insisted. "I know this isn't the answer you wanted to hear, but whether you hear it today, or three months from now, it's not going to change." She glanced around, watching the light snowflakes beginning to fall around them. "I should go. You should too," she said pointedly.

Letting go of her hand, Alisa reached for her hood behind her. Tugging it over her head, she took a few steps to where the alleyway met the road that led back into the city, pausing just before she reached the intersection. "Let me know when you guys have made the decision. I'd like to see you before… you know," she said quietly over her shoulder, before she turned and was gone.

Something huge and monstrous seemed to be fighting to claw its way out of her chest as Eli stood there, staring after the spot where her sister had left. Her fingernails dug into the icy skin of her palm, but the sensation barely registered as the snow began falling more thickly from the grey skies above.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket, but Eli didn't feel like picking it up. She had sneaking suspicion she knew who it was, but right now, she was far too worn down by the short, ten minute conversation to speak to anyone.

Without a clear destination in mind, she left the alleyway on numb legs. With her coat pulled up around her neck and the worsening weather, she doubted that anyone in the outer district would recognize who she was—or wasn't.

She didn't want to go home, knowing that Umi, at the very least, would be waiting anxiously for her return. The other option that she had didn't seem very appealing either, because she knew that back at the district building, Nozomi would be waiting for her as well. Eli didn't know if she had the strength to face either of them at the moment.

Forty-five minutes later, Eli found herself standing at the beachside of Tokyo Bay. The snowfall from earlier had stopped as quickly as it had come, though traces of the white powder still lingered on the rocks that led down to the water. A heavy fog had settled over the bayfront, obscuring her vision of the outer districts beyond.

For almost an hour, she wandered along the water's edge, breathing in the cold, misty air in hopes that it would somehow drive away the tumour of anguish that had spawned at the back of her throat and the wall of denial and fear in her chest that had engendered it. Finally, too cold and too exhausted to continue, she stopped, sitting down on a large chunk of a tree that had washed ashore.

Why?

The singular question reverberated in her mind as her phone buzzed again. A memory surfaced from underneath the weight of everything that had happened that afternoon, and numbly, she reached for her phone in her pocket, knowing that things would only escalate for the worse if she continued to refuse to pick up.

"Hello?" Her voice rang flatly against the low ringing in her ears.

"Eli? Where are you?" Surprise prickled at her skin when she recognized Nozomi's slightly anxious voice on the other end of the line. Somehow, when the violet-haired woman had told her that she would be overseeing her visit to the outer district that afternoon, she hadn't expected the district ruler to call her personally.

"The bay," she replied, aware of how tired and lifeless she sounded.

There was silence on the other end of the line for a few moments. "Alright. I'll be there to pick you up." Nozomi did not leave room for a possible argument as she hung up.

True to her word, less than half an hour later, Eli heard soft footsteps on the sand behind her. She didn't turn around to acknowledge them, knowing that there was only one person in the district who had both the resources and the concern to find out where exactly she was at the moment.

Nozomi did not ask her what was wrong, presumably because she had already put together what had happened on the way there; instead, the district ruler sat down on the other side of the log, careful to leave a foot or two of space in between them.

"Would you like to talk about it?" she asked gently.

Eli shook her head. "There's... nothing to talk about," she replied listlessly. Her hands were gripping the fabric of the material over her knees so hard they were white, despite the cold. She tried to control the fine tremble that had taken over her fingers, but they wouldn't stop.

A gloved hand came to rest over her own, warm and reassuring. "What did she say?"

It was the quiet insistence in Nozomi's voice that finally undammed the emotions that had bottled up in her chest, digging out the pain from where she'd tried to banish it to. "She thinks…" Her voice faltered, and she had to try again. "She thinks we should go through with it." The words died out to a hoarse whisper, and that was when the tears began to fall.

Eli hated crying. It was useless and selfish and weak—and it would do nothing to solve the problem at hand.

But she was also consciously aware that there was nothing anyone could do to solve the problem at hand. It wasn't for the lack of trying and it wasn't because the people she knew hadn't done enough. Both Maki and Nozomi had done more for the fact than she had had any right to expect, and she knew it wasn't fair for her to expect that somehow, they would solve the problem for her.

The fact that Alisa seemed to have accepted what was going to happen only made things worse. It would've been easier if she was angry at me because of what I told her. At least it would've made sense. Instead, I feel like she… didn't want to owe me or make me regret it. It hurt more because she knew Alisa had meant the things she had said. There had been no mistaking the desolate bitterness in her sister's voice when she'd spoken about the hopelessness of living in Tokyo's outer districts, and Eli knew that the words had been offered as an explanation.

But… understanding why doesn't fix everything. It means the difference between being angry and being sad about what went wrong. That's all.

Gentle arms coaxed her out of her stiff, upright posture as Nozomi moved to sit beside her. Eli offered her no resistance as she drew her into a tight embrace and let her cry.

They stayed that way for an unknown amount of time, huddled together against the icy bite of the coming winter wind. Slowly, Eli let the steady, even breathing of the woman beside her calm the erratic rise and fall of her chest. She was out of tears, but pain roiled just beneath the surface.

She felt Nozomi softly press her lips against her forehead.

"I'm sorry," Nozomi said to her quietly. "It seems like no matter what you do, you're destined to pay the price for things other people have done." She paused, drawing in a breath and letting out a sigh. "I'm sorry that I don't have the power to change what will happen."

"It's… not your fault," Eli finally mumbled, her voice shaky and raw.

"No, but I feel responsible nonetheless. It's not right that no matter what happens, the only thing you can do is accept it."

Surprising them both, Eli choked out a dry laugh that sounded so weary she felt the violet-haired woman freeze at the sound. "Whether I want to or not, I have to," she said in a low voice, hating the burn scraping the back of her throat again as she worked to swallow. "Everyone else seems to have done so, except for me."

She felt a hand gently touch her cheek, brushing away what remained of her tears. "I'm not going to tell you things are going to be okay," Nozomi murmured. "I don't think that's what you want to hear. But it is okay if you don't want to talk right now. When you are—whenever that may be—I'll be there to listen, like you were for me. You'll get through this. We will get through this."

Eli let her head drop, resting her forehead on Nozomi's shoulder, unable to muster the strength to look at her and feeling far too drained to even try. "I'm so tired," she said at last, hands trembling again as she curled them into fists.

She knew Nozomi was aware she didn't mean the somnolent kind of tired.

"I know," the violet-haired woman responded softly, placing a hand in her hair, pushing back the bangs that had fallen into her face. Eli did not protest when she pulled her closer. The empty chasm inside her yawned, baring its teeth as Nozomi took one of her hands, prising her fingertips away from where they were digging into her palm. The warmth of her fingers did not erase the hollow anguish that crawled underneath her skin, but it gave her something to cling to.

For everything left that was still ahead of them, it would have to do.